A suspected car bomb outside a soccer stadium in central Istanbul wounded around 20 people on Saturday hours after the end of a match between two of Turkey’s top teams, in what appeared to be an attack targeting riot police.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, speaking in parliament during a budget hearing, said around 20 people had been wounded, many of them police officers, and that initial indications were that a car bomb targeting a police bus was responsible.
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 Besiktas 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 Dolmabahce mosque.
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