Bus carrying Turkish military bombed in Istanbul, kills 4
A remote-controlled roadside bomb ripped through a bus transporting Turkish military personnel and their families to a gendarmerie paramilitary base in Istanbul.Turkish authorities say three gendarmerie sergeants and the 17-year-old daughter of a member of the security forces were killed in the attack.
"It was a remote-controlled, fragmentation bomb that was left on the side of the road," said Huseyin Avni Mutlu, the governor of Istanbul, in a televised appearance broadcast live from the scene of the explosion. "This is a terrorist act."
The bomb attack took place in the western, European side of the city. Mutlu said the device hit the third and last of a three-bus convoy that was traveling to the Istanbul Province Gendarmerie Command Center.
CNN Turk, CNN's sister network, broadcasted images of the white civilian passenger bus standing in the middle of the road, with purple curtains blowing through shattered windows.
CNN Turk also showed video of a man dressed in civilian clothes bleeding from the stomach, being loaded into an ambulance.
No group has claimed responsibility for the blast. But the deadly explosion comes at a time when the 26-year conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, is once again flaring.
Last week, a top Turkish army general announced the PKK was increasing the frequency of its attacks. General Fahri Kir said the militants trying to expand its operations beyond south-eastern, predominantly Kurdish-populated Turkey
PKK militants are making no secret of their threats to widen the battlefield in Turkey.
"If the military operations and the political operations do not stop against the guerrillas and the Kurdish people, the actions of the PKK will spread to the cities as well," said PKK spokesman Roj Welat, in a telephone call to CNN from northern Iraq.
Twelve Turkish troops were killed in eastern Turkey last weekend, during clashes with rebels along the border with Iraq. According to the Turkish military, at least 55 Turkish security forces have been killed in fighting with the PKK since the beginning of March 2010.
Turkish authorities said they were investigating links between Tuesday's roadside bomb, and a similar, less deadly bombing that targeted a police bus in the same Halkali district of Istanbul on June 8. Fifteen police officers were injured in that attack.
When asked about the previous police bus blast, Istanbul Police Chief Huseyin Capkin said there may be a connection. He added that authorities were investigating the possible link.
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