TURKEY: Turkish police believe a woman killed in a bomb blast that injured one other person in Ankara yesterday was a far-left suicide bomber whose explosives detonated by accident, authorities said.
The blast rocked a three-storey cafe frequented by students in the city's main commercial district, Kizilay.
A senior police official said the woman belonged to the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), the largest of Turkey's far-left factions.
A member of the DHKP-C based in Belgium said he had "no information at this time" about the blast in the Turkish capital.
Twisted metal, glass and wood were scattered on a walkway next to a busy street outside the cafe, and witnesses saw police retrieving body parts.
Witnesses earlier said a young woman was seen entering a toilet where the explosion is believed to have occurred. Only a few customers were in the cafe at the time of the blast.
"It was suicide, of course. The aim was to kill others but the result was that during the preparations the bomber was hit," one police official said.
The senior police official confirmed that authorities believe the woman was carrying the explosives that detonated.
Police cordoned off the area surrounding the cafe while bomb squad units sifted through rubble on the cafe's third storey, part of a larger building. Medical investigators said the woman was between 30 and 35 years old.
"I heard a loud explosion at about 9 a.m. and came rushing over. I saw body parts, including a hand on the ground," a local shopkeeper said.
Cafe owner Mr Sadullah Kayalar said he had received no warning ahead of the attack. "We didn't receive any threats. We weren't expecting anything like this," he said.
The DHKP-C said it was behind a string of small blasts at a McDonald's restaurant and a state-run hotel in Istanbul last month to protest against the US-led war in Iraq. No one was hurt in those attacks.
The group has staged hunger strikes in which some 60 people have starved themselves to death to protest against Turkish prison conditions.