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Turkey arrests 5 people suspected of links to Istanbul blast

Speaking at a technology forum in Ankara, Davutoglu said six people had been killed and 39 wounded in the attack in the small town of Cinar.

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An Islamic State suicide bomber, who entered Turkey as a Syrian refugee, blew himself up among groups of tourists in the historic centre of Istanbul on Tuesday, killing 10 Germans and seriously wounding several other foreigners.

The attack took place in near three of Istanbul’s most famed tourist attractions – the Blue Mosque, the Ottoman-era Topkapi Palace and the Hagia Sophia, a former Christian basilica.

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said Wednesday that authorities were working to identify people connected to the attacker.

Ten Germans are confirmed dead, Turkish media reported, quoting an updated statement from Germany’s Foreign Ministry.

They all, along with German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, visited the site of the Sultanahmet blast and visited injured victims at the Haseki Training and Research Hospital in Istanbul.

But Ankara previous year stepped up its involvement in the US-led coalition against IS, hosting American war planes at its Incirlik air base for deadly raids against the jihadists and conducting some airstrikes of its own. Turkish officials say the bomber, a Syrian born in 1988, was affiliated with the Islamic State group.

“I must relay the sad news that we now have 10 dead Germans among the victims” from Tuesday’s attack, ministry spokeswoman Sawsan Chebli told reporters.

On Wednesday, Turkish police also arrested 13 suspected IS militants, including three Russian nationals, a day after the bombing in Istanbul’s historic Sultanahmet district.

De Maiziere said: “I see no reason to refrain from traveling to Turkey”.

It has become a target of the terror group, with two of last year’s bombings blamed on them.

Top German and Turkish officials already were scheduled to meet in Berlin next week to discuss Europe’s migrant crisis, in which Turkey – which borders both Syria and the European Union – is a key player. De Maiziere said those talks will also address “the determined fight against terrorism”.

The Istanbul attack, targeting groups of tourists as they wandered around the square, appeared to mark a change in Islamic State’s tactics against Turkey.

“This person was not someone who was being monitored”, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.

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Efkan Ala said during a news conference with his German counterpart that the suspect was detained late Tuesday. “Then we started to run away, and the bomb instantly exploded”, the group’s tour guide Sibel Satiroglu told investigators, the Hurriyet newspaper said.

Turkish police forces. AFP