At least 17 people were killed and 154 injured in a double bomb attack late last night in a busy shopping street in Istanbul, hours before a court was due to decide the fate of Turkey’s ruling political party.

The pedestrianised shopping area in the city’s working-class Gungoren district was a scene of devastation, with broken glass and human remains strewn across the bonnets of burnt-out cars.

Casualties were dragged to ambulances while police cordoned off the area, a narrow street between apartment blocks.

“I felt the ground disappear beneath my feet,” one eyewitness, identified only as Alaattin, told NTV Turkey. “People flew up in the air in all directions. It was absolutely horrible.”

Muammer Guler, Istanbul’s Governor confirmed that there had been two explosive devices placed in rubbish bins – a small one, presumably to attract the crowds, and a second, bigger one to cause the maximum number of casualties.

Although the street was fairly quiet when the first bomb struck at around 9.45 local time, witnesses said that a crowd of about 1,000 onlookers had gathered by the time the second bomb went off, ten to fifteen minutes later.

“A treacherous organisation was behind this . . . but who exactly we do not know yet,” said Hayati Yazici, the Deputy Prime Minister. But security sources were quick to blame the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for the attack because of the double blast – a tactic they say that the PKK had used before.

The explosions took place less than 24 hours after a military raid on PKK targets in northern Iraq, which Turkish armed forces have been attacking since late last year. The group, branded a terrorist organisation by Western governments, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. It has become more active recently, after a lengthy period of retrenchment when its leader was captured in 1999.

The attacks come at a tense time in Turkey. Today the Constitutional Court will consider a controversial case to ban the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK) for alleged Islamist activity.

Last Friday an Istanbul court released an indictment accusing a shadowy group operating within the security forces and other institutions of plotting to create civil unrest and topple the Government.

According to leaks from the indictment, the so-called Ergenekon group appears to be the present incarnation of what has long been called the “Deep State” in Turkey – ultra-nationalists using murder and mayhem to destabilise the country and keep the reins of power.

The group is being investigated for links with several high-profile murder cases and bomb attacks, and is suspected of engineering PKK and Islamic terrorist attacks.

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