Bomb Blast in Turkey Injures Two

ISTANBUL, Turkey – A bomb exploded Saturday at an Istanbul cafe frequented by tourists, injuring at least two people, police said.

The blast at a cafe near the city's Galata bridge (search) was caused by either a remote-controlled bomb or a bomb with a timer, police said.

A Dutch citizen and a Turk who worked at the cafe were injured, the Anatolia news agency reported. Police at the site earlier said that three people were injured, but a police official later said that only two people were injured. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

Police suspected Kurdish rebels were behind the attack.

A vendor selling grilled fish sandwiches about 100 yards from the cafe, said he felt a violent blast. Mashar Adanas (search) said he saw people running out of the cafe shouting "bomb, bomb."

Mustafa Bulut, who was selling corn from a cart near the blast, said he also saw people running from the cafe.

"I turned around right away and everyone was running. Everyone panicked," Bulut said.
On July 16, a bomb under a seat of a minibus in a popular Aegean beach resort killed five people, including an Irish teenager and a British woman. No group has claimed responsibility for that blast, but suspicion also fell on Kurdish guerrillas.

Also Saturday, the Sirnak (search) governor's office in southeast Turkey said government forces killed five Kurdish rebels in a gunbattle. The violence Thursday brought to 15 the number of rebels killed in the past 10 days.