“I condemn the terror incident in Istanbul, assessed to be an attack by a suicide bomber with Syrian origin,” the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said in a televised speech. “Unfortunately we have 10 dead, including foreigners and Turkish nationals … There are also 15 wounded.”
The city’s governor said an investigation was ongoing to determine the perpetrator. Police sealed off the area and the government imposed a broadcast ban.
A Norwegian man who was wounded in the bombing says his knee was pierced by shrapnel from the explosion. Jostein Nielsen, a 59-year-old Salvation Army officer, told Norway’s TV2 from his hospital bed that he and his wife were sightseeing in the Turkish city when the bomb went off.