Update, Dec. 10, 9:43 p.m.: Turkey’s interior minister announced that the death toll has increased to 29, according to the Associated Press and CNN. He said 27 of the dead were police officers, and the number of injured has risen to 166.
Original post, 6:06 p.m.: Two blasts rocked Istanbul Saturday night outside a major soccer stadium in the Turkish capital, killing at least 13 people according to local reports. At least one of the explosions is believed to have been a car bomb while another one was thought to have been caused by a suicide bomber.
The two blasts were heard hours after a match between two of Turkey’s top soccer teams had ended at the new Vodafone Arena Stadium, known as Beşiktaş Stadium. The timing of the blasts has led to speculation that riot police were the targets. Witnesses said gunfire was heard after the blast, suggesting there could have been an armed attack against the police as well.
Kurtulus Ari /Getty Images
“It is thought to be a car bomb at a point where our special forces police were located, right after the match at the exit where Bursaspor fans exited, after the fans had left,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said.
The stadium is close to Taksim Square, a major tourist and nightlife area in Istanbul. Details are still scant but local broadcaster NTV said around 38 people were wounded. This video that caught the blast in the background (at the 17-second mark) shows just how huge one of the explosions was.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack that comes months after 45 people were killed and hundreds were wounded at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport in June. If police were indeed the target of the attack then suspicion will focus on Kurdish guerilla groups, according to the BBC. The editor of Diken, an independent news website based in Istanbul, agrees with the initial assessment. “Early suspicions would fall on the [Kurdish Workers’ Party] or an affiliated organization, TAK, which always targets the police and has been behind similar bombings in Ankara,” he told the Guardian. “The other suspect, ISIS, attacks indiscriminately. It doesn’t care if civilians are killed as well. This seems to have been specifically aimed at the police.”
