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Explosions took place hours after match between two of countrys top teams

The attackers appear to have targeted a bus containing riot police. Photograph: Murad Sezer/Reuters
A suspected car bomb outside a major soccer stadium in Istanbul has left more than a dozen people dead according to security sources in the Turkey.
Witnesses said more police were deployed and had cordoned off the area as smoke rose from the newly built Be?ikta? stadium. They said gunfire had also been heard in what appeared to have been an armed attack on police.
Broadcaster NTV said 38 people had been wounded but gave no details of any death toll and said the explosion seemed to have targeted a police vehicle that was leaving the stadium after fans had dispersed.
Speaking earlier, Turkeys interior minister, Sleyman Soylu, said the wounded were police officers. 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, he said. We have no information on the number of dead. God willing, we hope there wont be any. The wounded are police.

Crime scene investigators at the scene of the explosion. Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA
Prime minister Binali Y?ld?r?m and Istanbul governor Vasip ?ahin had been notified, Turkeys state-run Anadolu news agency said.
Two witnesses told Reuters they had heard two blasts outside the Vodafone Arena, which lies on the edge of the Bosphorus in central Istanbul and is home to the Be?ikta? soccer team. A Reuters photographer said many riot police officers were seriously wounded.
It was like hell. The flames went all the way up to the sky. I was drinking tea at the cafe next to the mosque, said Omer Yilmiz, who works as a cleaner at the nearby Dolmabahe mosque. People ducked under the tables, women began crying. Football fans drinking tea at the cafe sought shelter. It was horrible.
Armed police sealed off streets around the stadium. A police water cannon doused the wreckage of a burnt-out car and there were two separate fires on the road outside the building. Images broadcast on television showed more than a dozen ambulances on a street hugging the stadium and a police helicopter flying overhead with its search lights on.
Turkish soccer team Bursaspor said none of its fans appeared to have been injured in the explosion. We have contacted our fan groups. There appear to be no injuries among our fans. We wish injured citizens a quick recovery, Bursaspor said in a statement on its Twitter account.
In a tweet, Turkeys transport minister, Ahmet Arslan, referred to the bombing as a terrorist attack.
I condemn the terror attack on Besiktas, Istanbul, and wish all those injured a speedy recovery, he wrote.
The US consulate in Istanbul issued a tweet urging people to avoid the area.
Authorities announced that six prosecutors have been ordered to investigate the attack.
The countrys Radio and Television Supreme Council, meanwhile, placed a gagging order on reporting the attack.
Turkey has been hit by a series of bombings in recent years, some blamed on Islamic State militants, others claimed by Kurdish and far-leftist militant groups.
There was mounting speculation, less than an hour after the explosions, that rebels with the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) or an offshoot of the group were behind the attack.
The organisation has been calling for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey since the late 1970s and in recent months, following the botched coup against president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July and the crackdown that ensued, has stepped up targeted assaults against police.
Erdal Gven, editor in chief of Diken an independent news portal based in Istanbul, said the brazen attack bore all the hallmarks of the group. Early suspicions would fall on the PKK or an affiliated organisation, 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 doesnt care if civilians are killed as well. This seems to have been specifically aimed at the police.
source
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