A bomb blast killed three Turks and wounded dozens more people in Turkey's Mediterranean tourist hub Antalya on Monday, the fifth explosion to hit the country in less than 24 hours, Reuters reported. Blasts in Turkey's largest city Istanbul and the coastal resort of Marmaris injured 27 people on Sunday and a Kurdish rebel group believed linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said on Monday it carried out those attacks. "Nothing in Turkey will be as it was before," said the Kurdistan Liberation Hawks (TAK) on its Web site, claiming responsibility for Sunday's blasts. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Antalya explosion. Locals and witnesses in Antalya told Reuters they heard a loud bang, which broke windows, shattered glass, sent shrapnel flying into people and sparked a fire at a shopping area in the heart of the city, one of Turkey's most popular destinations. "I saw two wounded tourists and a burned body of a dead man who was a pastry vendor," said journalist Riza Ozel on holiday. Officials at three hospitals contacted by Reuters said they had received in total 38 wounded people. Russia's Vice Consul in Antalya Sergey Koritsky told Reuters that the injured included a German, a Jordanian, two Iranians, four Israelis and a Russian. "There was a fire and a lot of cars were damaged, a lot of motorbikes were damaged," he said, adding that the street was packed with restaurants and shops. The Antalya blast came less than 24 hours after three separate bombs in Marmaris injured 21 people within 15 minutes. Another device in Istanbul wounded six people earlier on Sunday evening. Television images from Antalya showed shattered shop windows with goods scattered, bicycles torn apart on the street, gathered crowds and men carrying injured and bloodied people, many in a state of shock. Antalya's governor's office said the three dead were Turks. One policeman said up to 50 may have been hurt. State-run Anatolian news agency said a nearby street had been shut off to traffic because a suspicious bag was found. A bomb squad was on its way to the scene. In Marmaris, 10 Britons and six Turks were wounded when a bomb placed under a seat in a minibus exploded on a street crowded with bars and restaurants around midnight. "Who did this? What do they want from these people?" Suzanne Bedford, whose two grandchildren were being treated at the Ahu Hetman hospital in Marmaris, asked an official. Local authorities pledged to find the culprits, suspected of belonging to the PKK, which has waged a more than 20-year campaign to carve a homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeast. There was little impact on Turkish financial markets, but one hotel owner in Marmaris said cancellations had already started to come in. Antalya and Marmaris are resorts popular with European and Russian tourists as well as Turks. Millions of foreigners flock to its coastline each summer. Locals are concerned the tourist industry, a powerful motor of the Turkish economy, would be further dented by the attacks, which are the latest in a string of bombings over the past year. Security was stepped up along the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts, still packed with tourists. Kurdish separatists, leftists and Islamic militants have carried out bomb attacks in Turkey in the past. Last Friday two bombs exploded in the southern Turkish city of Adana, injuring four people. The PKK launched a separatist campaign in 1984. The United States and the European Union, as well as Turkey, consider the group a terrorist organisation. Ankara blames the group for the deaths of more than 30,000 people.
