 A warning was given only minutes before the attacks |
Separate Kurdish and Islamist groups say they were behind a series of bombs that killed two people in Istanbul. Eleven people were injured in the attacks in the Turkish city early on Tuesday morning.
A previously unknown Kurdish group - the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons - said it planted the bombs.
But a group linked to al-Qaeda also claimed the attacks, calling them the first of a "wave of operations" across Europe, and saying worse was to come.
The explosions occurred at two small hotels and a gas plant in Istanbul.
Prime suspects
Two men, an Iranian and a Turk, died at the Pars Hotel in the Laleli district. The injured include Chinese, Dutch, Ukrainian and Turkmen citizens.
The Pars received a warning by phone but had only 10 minutes to react.
Turkish authorities said Kurdish separatists were the prime suspects.
A German news agency said it had received a call from the unknown Kurdish group saying it carried out the attacks because of recent Turkish military operations against Kurdish rebels.
Kurdish militants called off a ceasefire in June.
'Bloody war'
Meanwhile, a website posted a statement by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which said: "Istanbul is the opening for the bloody war we promised the Europeans."
It said the attacks would punish Europe for rejecting a truce purportedly offered by Osama Bin Laden.
The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades have claimed various attacks in the past, including the Madrid bombs in March and four simultaneous suicide bombings in Istanbul last November that killed more than 60 people.
But they have not been officially linked to any major attacks and Turkish police cast doubt on their supposed role in the latest blasts.
A police official told the AP news agency that explosives used in Tuesday's attacks had similarities to those used in a car bombing in July blamed on Kurds.
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