Turkey mourns as death toll from Istanbul bombings reaches 38

ISTANBUL — The death toll in twin bombings that ripped through the heart of Istanbul late on Saturday has risen to 38, including at least 30 police officers, according to Turkey’s interior minister, in a brazen attack officials have said was likely carried out by separatist Kurdish militants.
The government on Sunday declared a day of mourning after the two explosions, including a car bomb and separate suicide attack, detonated near the entrance of a soccer stadium in central Istanbul Saturday night.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which injured 155 people, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Sunday.
Seven of those killed were civilians, while another victim could not be identified. Thirteen people were detained in connection with the attack, Soylu said, but the circumstances leading to the arrests were unclear.
Saturday’s blasts, which could be heard across the city and sent up a plume of smoke, detonated outside the Vodafone Arena in the Beskitas area of Istanbul, less than a mile from the city’s bustling Taksim Square and on the edge of the Bosporus. The near-simultaneous bombs marked the deadliest attack in Istanbul in months.

Turkey has been hit by a string of terrorist attacks in recent years, from Islamic State militants and Kurdish separatists waging a war for autonomy. In June, suspected Islamic State operatives staged a daring assault on Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, killing nearly 50 people. Kurdish groups, including the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its violent offshoot, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), have mounted attacks on security forces in major Turkish cities.
Kurds make up roughly 20 percent of Turkey’s 75



million people, and have fought for autonomy for years. A bloody war between the two sides ended with peace accords in 2013, but the ceasefire quickly deteriorated. Tensions flared again in 2015, bringing terror to Turkish cities and devastation to Kurdish areas in the south.
The pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP), whose members have been elected to Turkey’s parliament, condemned the attack in a statement on Sunday. Turkish security forces have targeted many HDP leaders for arrest, claiming the lawmakers have ties to Kurdish militants.
“We harshly condemn these attacks,” the HDP executive committee said. “Everyone must do their part to end this pain.”
Soylu said the attack started with a car bomb that targeted a group of riot police posted at the stadium after a soccer match earlier Saturday evening, according to local media reports. The second explosion, which authorities attribute to a suicide bomber, happened less than a minute after the first, in a throng of police officers, Soylu said.
Fires set off by the blasts could be seen burning around the stadium, in footage aired on local news channels. Dozens of ambulances were seen rushing to ferry the wounded. One of the soccer teams that had played earlier that night, Bursaspor, said on its official Twitter account that none of its fans had been injured in the bomb.
The attack came hours after Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) submitted a bill to parliament that would grant Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sweeping powers. The bill proposes amending the constitution to allow for a presidential rather than parliamentary system, and would enable the increasingly authoritarian leader to run for additional terms.