Ankara Blast Kills 28, Injures Dozens "Deputy Prime Minister Says"

Ankara Blast Kills 28, Injures Dozens "Deputy Prime Minister Says"

President Erdogan vows to fight against 'pawns' responsible for attacks

And twenty-eight people and wounded dozens in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Wednesday when a car packed with explosives near a military bus near the headquarters of the armed forces, parliament and other government buildings.

The Turkish army has condemned what it described as a terrorist attack on a bus while they were waiting at the traffic lights in the administrative heart of the city.

Deputy Prime Minister and government spokesman Numan Kurtulmuş said 28 people, including soldiers and civilians were killed and 61 wounded in the blast, which occurred near a busy intersection less than 500 meters from the parliament during the evening rush hour.

"We will continue our fight against the pawns that carry out such attacks, which know no moral or humanitarian bounds, and  the forces behind them with more determination every day," President Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement on Wednesday.

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag described the attack as an act of terrorism and told parliament, which was in session when the blast occurred, that the car had exploded on a part of the street lined on both sides by military vehicles.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who had been due to leave for meetings in Brussels later on Wednesday, cancelled the trip, an official in his office said. Erdogan postponed a planned visit to Azerbaijan.

The White House, the German chancellor condemns attack:

"And we and the Germans and the sharing of the pain I say to the Turkish people," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement Wednesday. "In the battle against those responsible for these inhuman acts we along with Turkey."

The White House condemned the attack on Wednesday night.

"We stand together with Turkey, a NATO ally, a strong partner, an important member of the anti-coalition of ISIL in the face of this attack," said Ned Price, a spokesman for the National Security Council of the White House, using an alternative shortcut to a group of Islamic states.

"The perpetrators of this terrorist attack, hopes will be brought swiftly to justice," he said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon also condemned the blast and.

Turkish soldier stands guard near the site of the explosion.

Attack is the latest in a series of bombings blamed mostly on Islamic state over the past year, and comes as it gets NATO member withdrawing ever deeper into the war in neighboring Syria, and trying to contain some of the fiercest violence in decades in the rebellious south Kurdish considerably.

A senior security source said initial evidence suggested that Kurdish militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were responsible. However, separate security sources in the southeast of the country said they believed the militants of the Islamic state may be behind the bombing.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

A witness said, "I heard a huge explosion. There was smoke and the smell is really strong even though we were blocks away," Reuters. "We used to hear immediately ambulances, police cars and sirens rushed to the scene."

Turkish close the street after the blast in Ankara, Turkey on February 17,2016.

A health ministry official said the authorities were still trying to determine the number of dead and wounded, who had been taken to several hospitals in the area.

Images on social media showed the charred wreckage of at least two buses and a car. The explosion, which came shortly after 6:30 pm (1630 GMT), sent a large plume of smoke above central Ankara.

Multiple security threats:

Turkey faced a NATO member, and multiple security threats. It is part of the coalition that led the United States in fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), it has been shelling Kurdish militia fighters in northern Syria in recent days.

It is also under battling PKK fighters in the south-east of its own in terms of overall collapsed ceasefire 2-1 / 2 July, to enter the region in its worst violence since the 1990s.

The PKK, which fought in the ongoing insurgency for three decades for Kurdish autonomy, has attacked often military targets in the past, although it focuses to a large campaign on the southeast of the country's mainly Kurdish extent.

The bombing on Wednesday after blaming the attack in Ankara in October on the Islamic state, when two suicide bombers struck a crowd of pro-Kurdish and work outside the main train station in the capital, killing more than 100 people.

A suicide bombing in the historic heart of the city of Istanbul in January, also blamed on the Islamic state, killed 10 German tourists.