ISTANBUL — A Syrian suicide bomber detonated a bomb in a historic district of Istanbul popular with tourists Tuesday morning, killing at least 10 people — at least nine of them German tourists — and wounding 15 others, Turkish officials said.
Turkey’s state-run news agency said Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu held a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to express his condolences. A senior government official confirmed that most of the victims were German. Merkel had earlier said they were part of a German travel group.
“I strongly condemn the terror incident that occurred in Istanbul, at the Sultanahmet Square, and which has been assessed as being an attack by a Syria-rooted suicide bomber,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the bomber was a 28-year-old Syrian national whose “connections” were being investigated.
It was unclear whether the death toll of 10 included the alleged bomber.
Merkel, speaking at a news conference in Berlin, decried the attack.
“Today Istanbul was hit; Paris has been hit, Tunisia has been hit, Ankara has been hit before,” she said. “International terrorism is once again showing its cruel and inhuman face today.”
Police forensic officers at the scene near the Ottoman-era Sultanahmet mosque, known as the Blue Mosque.Photo: Reuters