Turkey: At Least 15 Killed in Two Explosions in Istanbul

Two consecutive explosions in a busy shopping district in an Istanbul suburb have killed at least 15 people and injured 137.

Istanbul's governor Muammer Guler told reporters at the scene that "it is certain that this is a terror attack."

"First a percussion bomb exploded and then a bomb in a garbage container exploded," the deputy prime minister, Hayati Yazici, told reporters.

Turkish television stations showed ambulances carrying badly wounded people to hospital.

A witness says the two explosions were some 10 minutes apart.

"The first explosion was not very strong," said Huseyin Senturk, who owns a shoe shop in the area. "Several people came to see what was going on. That's when the second explosion occurred and it injured many onlookers."

"We received nearly 30 very heavily wounded people," said Abdullah Toker, a manager at Gungoren Kolon Hospital.

"I condemn those who carried out this bombing, which shows us terrorism's inhumane desire for cruelty and violence without discriminating between men and women, young, old and children," the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, said in a statement.

An official at the Istanbul governor's crisis centre said the death toll had now reached 15 and that 137 people had been injured, some seriously. Turkish television stations have put the injuries as high as 150.

Several groups, including Kurdish separatists, far-left groups and Islamists, have carried out bomb attacks in Istanbul in the past.

No one has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.