Two bombs exploded in a shopping area in the western Turkish city of Izmir on Tuesday, killing one person and injuring seven others, officials said. A parcel bomb on a motorcycle claimed the life of a lottery ticket seller, Defence Minister Vecdi Gonul said as he visited the Aegean port city after cutting short a visit to a nearby town, Anatolia news agency reported.
Television footage showed a body under a blood-stained cover on a street littered with glass and charred pieces of metal. The explosion occurred outside a carpet shop that caught fire. Three and a half hours earlier, a bomb planted in a garbage container went off outside a shopping mall just 100 meters (yards) away in the same neighbourhood of Sirinyer, tearing off the arm and the leg of a street cleaner, Gonul said. The other victims were not seriously injured, he said. Two other people were treated for shock.
Using tape from security cameras, security forces established that the bombs had been planted overnight, Izmir police chief Huseyin Capkin said. "We are considering the possibility that these were time bombs made of plastic explosives," he said, adding that the motorcycle had been stolen.
A witness suggested the first bomb could have taken a heavier toll, saying that it exploded as the street cleaner was dragging the garbage container away from a queue of children waiting for a school bus. "I first thought the tyre of the bus burst, but then I saw the cleaner lying on the ground," the witness told Anatolia. "If the bomb had exploded at the bus stop, there were many students standing there."
The police were looking for two suspects in connection with the motorcycle blast, Anatolia reported. There was no official word on who may be behind the attacks. The NTV news channel quoted police as saying that separatist Kurdish militants, who have carried out bomb attacks in Izmir and other cities on the Aegean coast in recent years, could be possible suspects.
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