Updated Monday July 28th 2008 – They are now saying that at least 17 people have died and at least 154 others injured in the bombs which went off this weekend in Istanbul.
At least two bombs have gone off in Istanbul killing at a minimum 13 people and injuring 70 others according to the government of Turkey.
CNN has the story up:
Two deadly explosions rocked suburban Istanbul Sunday night, killing at least 13 people and injuring 70 others, a government official told CNN Turk.
Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler called the blasts “an act of terror.”
The back-to-back blasts happened in Istanbul’s Gungoren community at about 10 p.m., a journalist with Turkish news agency DHA told CNN Turk.
The journalist, Zafer Karakoc, said he witnessed the explosions.
Video footage from the scene shows several bloodied people being transported into ambulances.
Dozens of firefighters and paramedics were on the scene.
Glass and debris were strewn all over the brick sidewalks.
Authorities asked residents to evacuate the heavily pedestrian, working-class Gungoren neighborhood within an hour of the blast, reporters told CNN.
“This is just the type of neighborhood that ordinary people live in,” journalist Andrew Finkel told CNN.
When you put up with terrorists in your neighborhood pretty soon they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.
According to CNN the governor of Istanbul Muammer Guler reported that the explosive devices were placed just under 50 feet from each other. The first one was a stun grenade that was detonated first in order to get attention and draw people toward it. The second bomb went off within ten minutes of the first.
As of right now nobody has claimed responsibility for the bombs.
