Seven people have been detained in connection with this week’s suicide blast at Sultanahmet Square in Istanbul, Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala said Thursday.
The blast killed 10 German tourists and wounded several other people.
“A detailed and sensitive investigation and analysis of the event is ongoing,” Ala said.
Tuesday’s suicide bombing in Sultanahmet Square was a strike at the heart of Turkey’s culture and its multibillion-dollar tourist industry.
Officials quickly blamed ISIS for the attack.
And Turkey’s Prime Minister promised Wednesday to make a determined effort to repel the threat.
“We will continue our fight against terrorism with the same resolve and will never take a step back,” Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, according to Turkey’s semiofficial news site, Anadolu Agency.
Security sweeps across seven provinces
But he added that Istanbul had “become a city of hope today in the rings of fire in the region, to the people of the Middle East, Balkans and Caucasus.”
As if to underscore the government’s resolve, Turkey detained 68 suspected terrorists in sweeps across seven provinces, Anadolu Agency reported Wednesday.
That included three Russians who were staying at a house in Antalya, according to an account also reported by Russia’s state-run Sputnik news.
Another 21 people held in Sanliurfa were “preparing for attacks in Turkey,” according to Anadolu Agency. And 16 people — 15 of them Syrian — were detained in Ankara for allegedly starting to scout out buildings there.
One of those caught in the security sweep is being held in connection with the Istanbul blast, Ala said on Wednesday.