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Panic after blasts at Istanbul airport

Istanbul - At least 10 people were killed Tuesday evening in a suicide attack at the international terminal of Istanbul's Ataturk airport, Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said.

Two explosions hit the airport - Turkey's biggest - followed by gunfire, local television channels reported.

"Unfortunately 10 people have been killed according to a preliminary toll," Bozdag told parliament in Ankara.

More than a dozen ambulances raced to the international terminal of Ataturk airport, CNN-Turk said.

The channel cited witnesses as saying two violent blasts shook the terminal, sparking panic among passengers.

"It was very strong, everyone panicked and started running in all directions," one witness told CNN-Turk.

Police set up a perimeter around the site, television images showed.

Turkey has been hit by a string of deadly attacks in the past year, blamed on both Kurdish rebels and the Islamic State jihadist group.

Unconfirmed reports on CNN claim 28 dead and 60 injured. There appears to have been two attackers and 3 blasts.

All flights at Istanbul's Ataturk international airport were suspended on Tuesday.

The airport is the 11th busiest in the world.

AP reports Paul and Susie Roos, from Cape Town, were at the airport and due to fly home at the time of the explosions on Tuesday. They were shaken by what they witnessed.

"We came up from the arrivals to the departures, up the escalator when we heard these shots going off," Paul said.

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