Turkish police arrest 46 people over Istanbul explosion | News

Turkish police have arrested 46 people over the explosion in central Istanbul that left at least eight people dead and 81 others wounded, Istanbul police have said.

Interior minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters on Monday that the suspects included the “person who left the bomb that caused the explosion” on the busy Istiklal Avenue in Turkey’s largest city.

Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said a three-year-old girl and her father were among those killed.

#URGENT Person who left bomb that caused explosion Sunday on Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue arrested by police, says Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu pic.twitter.com/I08OTC4rPb

— ANADOLU AGENCY (@anadoluagency) November 14, 2022

Soylu blamed the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for Sunday’s blast, in the popular shopping and tourism spot, saying: “Our assessment is that the order for the deadly terror attack came from Ain al-Arab [Kobane] in northern Syria,” where he said the group has its Syrian headquarters.

“We will retaliate against those who are responsible for this heinous terror attack,” he said, adding that the death toll has risen from six to eight and that 81 people had been wounded, two of them in critical condition.

Turkish authorities are not ruling out ISIL (ISIS) ties, a senior Turkish official said Monday.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast yet.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday described the explosion as “treacherous” and said it “smells like terrorism”.

Justice minister Bekir Bozdag told A Haber television later on Sunday that a woman was seen sitting on one of the benches on Istiklal Avenue for more than 40 minutes.

The explosion occurred just minutes after she got up, he said.

“There are two possibilities,” he told A Haber. “There’s either a mechanism placed in this bag and it explodes, or someone remotely explodes [it]”.

Al Jazeera has obtained pictures of the woman suspected to be behind the bombing.

#الجزيرة تحصل على صور من زوايا مختلفة للسيدة المشتبه في أنها تقف وراء هجوم #اسطنبول pic.twitter.com/DgdojrKMMY

— قناة الجزيرة (@AJArabic) November 13, 2022

In initial questioning, the woman said she was trained by Kurdish militants in Syria and entered Turkey through northwest Syria’s Afrin region, the police said.

Television news reports also showed images of a person, who appeared to be a woman, leaving a package below a raised flower bed on Istiklal, which has a tramline running the length of the street.

Al Jazeera’s Koseoglu said two more Syrian nationals were involved in the attack, according to security sources.

“The interior minister mentioned that these perpetrators are linked to the YPG, the Syrian Kurdish fighter group, which Turkey considers as an offshoot of the outlawed PKK,” Koseoglu said.

“We’re waiting for officials to give more details about the suspects… [including] how they crossed the Turkish-Syrian border as Turkey has been very strict about Syrians who are staying in big cities without residential permits or without being registered.”

She added that the…