rkish authorities say the militant group Islamic State was behind a suicide bombing Tuesday that rocked the heart of Istanbul’s tourist district, leaving at least 10 people dead, most of them German tourists, and injuring 15 others.
The attack appears to be the latest in a series of deadly strikes by Islamic State operatives outside the breakaway Al Qaeda faction’s self-proclaimed caliphate, which stretches across a broad swath of Syria and Iraq.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters that the suicide bomber was a member of Daesh, an Arabic acronym for Islamic State, which is being targeted in Syria and Iraq by a U.S.-led coalition that includes Turkey, as well as by Russian warplanes in Syria.
“We will continue our fight against terrorism with the same resolve, and will never take a step back,” Davutoglu vowed at a news conference in Ankara, the Turkish capital.
Authorities described the suicide bomber as a Syrian national born in 1988, but the private Dogan news agency said he was born in Saudi Arabia. The attacker had recently entered Turkey from Syria, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters, without providing additional details.