Istanbul Street Blast: Nearly 6 dead, 46 arrested including bomb planter

Turkish officials on Sunday reported an explosion in a crowded area of central Istanbul resulted in at least six fatalities and 81 injuries. The explosion occurred on a retail strip near Taksim Square on Sunday at about 16:20 local time (13:20 GMT).

Suleyman Soylu, Turkey’s interior minister, reported that 46 individuals, including the bomb-planter, had been taken into custody.
“The perpetrator was taken into custody after leaving the bomb. Around 21 further individuals had previously been held, “added Soylu.

Istiqlal Avenue, a famous destination for shoppers and tourists with a tramline running the length of the street, was the scene of photographs that aired on television news broadcasts of a person, who appeared to be a woman, dropping a parcel below a raised flower bed.

Soylu claimed that the northern Syrian city of Kobani, where Turkish forces have recently engaged in operations against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, is where the order for the attack on Istanbul’s Istiqlal Avenue was given.

Soylu stated, “We have assessed that the order for the attack came from Kobani,” adding that the bomber had also travelled through Afrin, another area in northern Syria.

India expressed its sorrow on Sunday for the unfortunate deaths caused by the explosion that occurred in Istanbul earlier in the day. The Ministry of External Affairs’ official spokeswoman, Arindam Bagchi, expressed India’s sincere condolences and wished the injured a swift recovery.

After the attack on Sunday, fifty people were released from the hospital, raising fears that Turkey could be the target of additional bombings and attacks, similar to the string of attacks it endured between mid-2015 and 2017.