Car bombs kill 20 in Istanbul

Car bombs have killed 20 people and wounded 257 in Istanbul.

One explosion went off outside the Neve Shalom synagogue, the city's largest. The other severely damaged the Beth Israel synagogue in the affluent district of Sisli, three miles away, where members of the city's tiny Jewish, Armenian and Greek communities live.

The militant Turkish group Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front claimed responsibility for the suicide car bombings, which came on the Jewish Sabbath, Anatolia news agency said.

The Istanbul Health Directorate said 20 people were dead and 257 injured.

"This is a bomb aimed at the stability and peace in the Turkish Republic," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. "I am damning this. I am condemning this because this is an attack against humanity."

Aksu said police were investigating whether the attacks were suicide bombings, or whether the explosions were set off remotely by timers. Parking was not allowed in front of the synagogues. Aksu said it was possible two cars or pick-up trucks could have been driving slowly past the synagogues when they exploded.

"It was like a war zone," said Sadettin Gul, an eyewitness.

The Neve Shalom synagogue was the sight of an attack by gunmen in 1986. The gunmen, believed to be Palestinians, killed 22 worshippers and wounded six during a Sabbath service.

In 1992, the Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah carried out a bomb attack against the same synagogue but no-one was injured.

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