A Turkish official said Sunday that a package bomb -- not a suicide attacker -- caused an explosion that killed five people a day earlier at a popular resort on the Aegean Coast.
Authorities stepped up security at resorts to try to prevent a repeat of Saturday's blast, whose victims included a British woman and an Irish teenager, officials said.
Bomb experts completed on-scene investigations in the beach town of Kusadasi and returned to Ankara, the Turkish capital, to evaluate the evidence, Aydin province Governor Mustafa Malay said.
"Right now, we have two possibilities," Malay said. "It's possible the explosive was timed or that it was remote controlled. There was no suicide bomber."
The bomb was placed under a seat near the back of the minibus, Malay said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the blast, which tore off the top of a minibus carrying vacationers to the beach, leaving a palm tree-lined street strewn with twisted metal and the bodies of the dead and wounded.
Police and paramilitary personnel with bomb-sniffing dogs began stopping and searching all vehicles entering the Aegean resort towns of Bodrum and Marmaris after the bombings Saturday, security officials said. Dozens of additional police officers were also sent as reinforcements from Mugla and Ankara provinces.
A local official in Kusadasi said on Sunday that similar measures were being taken there, and that a specialized bomb team was investigating the blast.
Although suspicion immediately fell on Kurdish guerrillas, Turkey's main rebel group quickly denied responsibility for the explosion, and Turkish investigators would not say whether they had zeroed in on any suspects.
A top commander of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, Zubeyir Aydar, condemned the Kusadasi attack in a statement Saturday to the Germany-based Mezopotamya News Agency, which often carries rebel statements. The PKK's military wing also issued a statement through Mezopotamya on Sunday saying it had nothing to do with the bombing.
The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons Organization, a hardline group believed to be linked to the PKK, claimed responsibility for a bombing attack in the nearby resort of Cesme last Sunday that injured 21.
The group, believed to be made up of Kurds that have moved to Turkey's large cities, has vowed to continue attacks, and Malay, the governor, said there were similarities between the Kusadasi and Cesme bombings. He said police were investigating a possible link between the two.
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