A twin attack by a suicide bomber and a car bomber near an Istanbul football stadium killed 38 people, mostly police, on Saturday evening.

In the first of the blasts, which were captured on video, a car bomber approached police at 10.30pm local time, about an hour and a half after a football game had ended at the Vodafone Arena, before detonating. Shortly after, a suicide bomber struck at the nearby Macka park, according to two security officials.

The timing and choice of target for the attack immediately swung suspicion to a Kurdish insurgency in Turkey that has repeatedly focused on the police and armed forces, including a car bombing near the Air Force headquarters in Ankara earlier this year that killed 37 security officials. Nobody has yet claimed responsibility.