At least three people were killed on Friday, July 5 after a car blast in the Turkish town of Reyhanli close to the Syrian border, state media reported.
Two others were also injured, state news agency Anadolu said, as ambulances and police were rushed to the scene. The governor of Hatay province, where Reyhanli is located, Rahmi Dogan, told Anadolu that the cause of the explosion was not yet known.
“The initial findings suggest there may be more of a link with terror,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul.
“It is clear there was a bomb in the car,” he said.
Three people were killed, all Syrian nationals, Erdogan said.
“Our colleagues are looking into who was behind this,” he said in televised comments, adding the government would provide more information in a few hours.
The blast took place less than a kilometer from the Reyhanli district governor’s office around 1000 GMT, Anadolu reported.
Images in Turkish media showed thick black smoke and flames from the car as firefighters fought the blaze.
A twin car bombing blamed on pro-Damascus groups in May 2013 in Reyhanli killed over 50 people in one of the deadliest attacks in Turkey’s modern history.
Turkey was hit by a series of terror attacks in 2015 and 2016 blamed on Islamic State and Kurdish militants, which left hundreds dead.
The last major attack was the New Year massacre by a gunman at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul just minutes into 2017 which left 39 dead.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
With reporting from AFP.
