Shopping mall bomb kills 6 in Turkish capital

A powerful bomb exploded Tuesday evening outside a busy shopping mall in Turkey’s capital, killing at least six people, injuring more than 80 and heightening tensions in advance of contentious national elections.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described as a “vicious, ruthless terror attack.”

The explosion outside the five-story Anafartalar mall in Ankara shattered windows, wrecked a bus shelter and scattered debris over a wide area. As car alarms wailed, rescuers loaded the injured onto stretchers and draped white sheets over the dead.

The popular mall, in a landmark historic district, was crowded with early-evening shoppers when the explosion occurred. Private broadcaster NTV reported that seven arrests had been made but provided no details.

Ankara’s mayor, Melih Gokcek, called the scene horrific.

“It gives me great grief,” he told Reuters news agency.

The capital is home to a large diplomatic and expatriate community, and hospital officials said a number of foreigners were among those injured.

Erdogan, who is leading his ruling party into July 22 parliamentary elections, was visibly shaken after inspecting the scene.

The prime minister told reporters that investigators had not yet determined the type of device involved in the explosion.

It was the worst such attack in recent memory in the normally tranquil capital. However, Turkey has been hit by a number of bombings in recent years, some carried out by Islamic militants and some by Kurdish rebels.

There was no immediate indication of any link to Turkey’s elections, but the campaign has already polarized the country.

Erdogan moved up the elections by more than three months after the country’s highest court halted voting in parliament for president -- a post that his party’s candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, had been poised to win.

In the last month, secular Turks have been staging large street rallies throughout the country to protest the presidency going to a member of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, which has its roots in political Islam but insists that it has no Islamist agenda.

Turkey’s military, which considers itself the guardian of the country’s secular system, dropped broad hints that it would intervene if it believed that the new president would not uphold the country’s constitutional separation of religion and government.

Kurdish rebels staged a series of bombings last year, including three in Istanbul, the country’s largest city, and four in seaside resorts frequented by foreigners. Those attacks left at least seven people dead and injured dozens.

The Turkish military has been conducting operations in the country’s southeast against the rebels, and senior army generals have urged the government to authorize an incursion into northern Iraq, used by Kurdish rebels as a springboard for attacks in Turkey.

If Kurdish rebels are found to be responsible for Tuesday’s blast, public pressure probably would build in favor of a military operation in northern Iraq. The United States and other Western governments have strongly urged the Turkish military not to cross into Iraq.

In 2003, suicide bombers striking days apart killed nearly 60 people and injured hundreds in Istanbul.

Those bombings were blamed on Al Qaeda, and a Turkish court this year handed down life sentences to seven defendants.

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king@latimes.com

Special correspondent Borg reported from Istanbul and Times staff writer King from Islamabad, Pakistan.