Turkey braces for tense polls after deadly attack

Turkey today prepared for its tightest elections in over a decade, with tensions riding high after a bomb attack killed two and wounded dozens at a rally of the main pro-Kurdish party.
Judicial sources said the explosion at a rally of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) in southeastern city of Diyarbakir was caused by a cylinder bomb packed with hundreds of ball bearings.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) wants to take a large majority in tomorrow's legislative elections and change the constitution to give Turkey's charismatic but divisive President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more power.
But polls have indicated that its vote could be well down on the almost 50 percent score the AKP reaped in the last elections in 2011 and may even need to form a coalition.

The government has not yet confirmed that the Diyarbakir blast was the result of a bomb attack and initial reports had suggested it was due to a faulty electricity transformer.
But judicial sources in Diyarbakir told AFP that investigators had confirmed that the explosion was caused by a bomb.

"The experts collected hundreds of ball bearings and pieces of the metal cylinder," said a source, who asked not to be named.
The source confirmed that no suspect had yet been arrested over the blast but fingerprint and video evidence had been found.
In a statement, Diyarbakir prosecutors confirmed that two people had been killed and over 100 wounded.

The funeral was held this morning for one of those killed, Ramazan Yildiz, who was only 17, an AFP photographer reported.