France 24, Jan. 5, 2017 – Turkish police shot dead two attackers after a car bomb exploded outside a courthouse in the western coastal city of Izmir Thursday, wounding at least ten people, according to local officials.
The blast was caused by a car bomb, Izmir municipality secretary general Bugra Gokce told broadcaster, CNN Turk.
A security source told Reuters police had shot dead two attackers following the blast, and the state-run Anadolu news agency said they were searching for a third. Hospital sources said ten people had been brought in wounded.
The Dogan News Agency said the attack occurred at the entrance for judges and prosecutors.
Ambulances were seen rushing to the scene and at least one vehicle was burning near a courthouse in the city, local media reported.
Photographs posted on Twitter showed smoke rising from what appeared to be a car park near the courthouse.
The explosion comes just days after a gunman stormed the upscale Reina nightclub on the Bosphorus early Sunday, spraying 120 bullets at terrified partygoers celebrating the start of 2017.
Of the 39 dead, 27 were foreigners including citizens from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Tunisia, and Morocco.
The attack was claimed by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group who said it was in response to Turkey’s military intervention in war-ravaged Syria.
Spate of terrorist attacks
Turkey has endured a spate of recent brutal terrorist attacks in which hundreds of people have been killed, in violence blamed on both IS group jihadists and Kurdish militants.
Turkey is also still reeling from a failed July 15 coup attempt which the government has blamed on US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen.
Parliament on Tuesday extended a controversial state of emergency in place since the coup – and which has seen over 41,000 people arrested – by another three months to April 19.
