Suspected Islamist suicide car bombers killed at least 27 people and wounded hundreds in Istanbul today in a strike against Britain that US and British leaders called a challenge to their war on terror.
The bombings wrecked the British consulate and the HSBC Bank headquarters in Istanbul while US President George W. Bush was in London to meet British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair, his chief ally in the war in Iraq.
The mission's chaplain said Consul-General Mr Roger Short, a career diplomat, was among 15 killed at the British mission.
"We knew it was a bomb when an arm came flying through the window," said a doctor at a clinic near the HSBC blast.
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| A body lies in the street in front of the HSBC Bank after the bomb attacks in the commerce center of central Istanbul.
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Turkey's interior minister said at least 27 people had been killed. A health official said 450 people were wounded. Only five days ago, suicide bombers carried out a twin attack on Istanbul synagogues, killing 25 people.
British Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw said the strikes bore "all the hallmarks of the international terrorism operations practised by al-Qaeda and associated organisations". Washington blames al-Qaeda for the September 11th US attacks. Mr Blair told a London news conference with Mr Bush that the "terrorist outrage" showed democracy was fighting a war against evil.
Washington has long promoted Turkey, the only Muslim NATO member, as a model Islamic democracy that could be emulated by other Islamic countries.
"I heard a large bang. I thought it was an earthquake," Mr Adnan Akyildiz, who was working at the consulate, said. "I threw myself out of the window . . . the scene was horrendous - the gate, the consulate, the buildings were all demolished. A car was on fire.
"Then I looked for my friends, I saw four of the other cleaners dead; two of them were husband and wife."
A street that moments earlier was teeming with traffic and pedestrians lay littered with rubble and wrecked cars as thick, black smoke rose into a blue sky.
A witness reported a green van with the markings of a food company driving into the gate of the consulate as it exploded, the same technique used five days before in the synagogue attacks.