A suicide bomber is believed to have triggered a blast which ripped through a minibus in a western Turkish resort yesterday, killing four people and injuring 14, officials and news reports said.
Television footage of the scene showed the top of the minibus had been blown off by the force of the blast, which occurred around 10:30am as the vehicle travelled past a square in the town of Kusadasi on the way to a beach.
Kusadasi, some 70km from the port city of Izmir, is popular with Turkish and foreign tourists. Three foreign tourists were among the dead and five foreigners were critically injured in the explosion, a doctor at Kusadasi State Hospital said, on condition of anonymity. The five injured tourists were transferred to Izmir for treatment, the doctor added.
The NTV news channel said authorities believed a female suicide bomber was killed in the attack and police suspected plastic explosives were used.
"There is no clear information at the moment but we are considering all possibilities," local administrator Ali Baris said when asked whether a suicide bomber had caused the explosion.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but Kurdish rebels have recently carried out bomb attacks in Aegean resort towns. A Kurdish rebel group calling itself the Kurdistan Liberation Hawks (TAK) claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in the nearby resort of Cesme on July 10 in which 20 people were injured.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of