The vehicle was detonated near a courthouse in Izmir, Turkey, and a shootout followed. A police officer, a court employee and two attackers were killed. </s> A car bomb has exploded outside a courthouse in western Turkey, killing two people and wounding at least five, less than a week after a massacre in an Istanbul nightclub killed 39 revellers and left the country on edge.

Turkish authorities said two alleged gunmen were killed in a shootout following the attack in the city of İzmir. A third man is believed to have escaped. The city had been the scene of raids connected to the Istanbul attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State terror group.

The latest attack comes days after the end of an especially deadly year in Turkey, in which 275 people were killed in terror attacks and more than 1,000 maimed, according to Turkish media.



Kurdish militants have also intensified their deadly insurgency in recent months and the smaller scale of the attack, as well as the choice of target, led some officials to suggest it was carried out by one of several Kurdish militant groups. Provincial governor Erol Ayyıldız blamed Thursday’s carnage on the most prominent of them, the PKK.

Isis attacks in Turkey have focused on soft civilian targets and political rallies, whereas strikes by groups such as the PKK have typically targeted police officers and soldiers, as well as state institutions.



Ayyıldız said the gunfight occurred when police officers tried to stop a vehicle at a checkpoint and that the attackers detonated the car bomb while trying to escape. Arms including Kalashnikov rifles, hand grenades and ammunition for rocket-propelled grenade launchers were found at the scene, he said.

Images from the scene showed one suspect attacker apparently dead on the ground, still clutching an assault rifle. A video taken as the attack unfolded shows the flash of an explosion from a car. A burst of gunfire can be heard on other footage taken after the blast.

A police officer and court employee were killed, said Turkish deputy prime minister Veysi Kaynak, adding that the weapons found at the scene suggested that a much larger attack had been foiled. “Based on the preparation, the weapons, bombs and ammunition seized, it is understood that a big atrocity was being planned,” Kaynak told reporters.

The focus of the manhunt for the Istanbul gunman, who escaped after mowing down 39 people with an AK-47 in a seven minute rampage, had turned towards İzmir on Wednesday, when 20 members of the Uighur ethnic minority were arrested by counter terrorism police. After initially suspecting the gunman to be from Kyrgyzstan, officials now believe he may be a Uighur. Authorities say some of those arrested had travelled from China’s Xinjiang region.

Intelligence officials are also working on a separate theory that the attacker is from Uzbekistan. Either way, he is believed to have spent time in the central Turkish city of Konya, through where many of those to have launched attacks in Turkey are thought to have transited. European intelligence officials have long believed that Konya has been home to an Isis cell that has taken direct instruction from the group’s senior leaders inside Syria and also acts as a reception base for jihadis travelling beyond Turkey’s borders.

Turkey has stepped up its efforts to curb Isis inside its frontier and in Syria, where Turkish tanks and troops are supporting Syrian rebels as they push towards the town of al-Bab - a vitally important hub for Isis, where its external operations arm has been based for the past three years.



After using Turkish borders to cross into Syria and Iraq from mid-2012, Isis has increasingly turned its guns on Turkey, which it accuses of allying with western interests as the military push to defeat it steps up in Iraq and Syria.



Efforts to fight Kurdish groups, especially the PKK, have also intensified, with Ankara believing that the Kurds are using the chaos of Syria to advance a four-decade goal of self-determination in south-eastern Turkey.



In December, two bombs outside a football stadium in Istanbul killed 44 people, most of them police officers. The TAK – an offshoot of the PKK – claimed responsibility for what was the deadliest strike against security forces in several decades. Days earlier, a bomb on a bus in central Turkey killed 13 soldiers and wounded more than 50. </s> Three men who killed five people in a "bomb-like" shop blast have been convicted of murder and plotting to claim a £300,000 insurance pay-out.

Arkan Ali, Hawkar Hassan and Aram Kurd used "many, many litres of petrol" in an arson attack on Kurd's supermarket - causing an explosion which completely destroyed the shop and a flat above the premises.

Leicester Crown Court heard how some residents living near the Polish supermarket on Hinckley Road, Leicester, thought a bomb had reduced the property to rubble.

A five-week trial was told the defendants left shop worker Viktorija Ijevleva, 22, to die in the building because she was aware of the insurance policy taken out less than three weeks earlier.

Opening the Crown's case at the start of the trial, prosecutor David Herbert QC told a jury of seven women and five men the defendants intended to maximise the damage to the premises and "would have known" people would have been in the two-storey flat above.

Ali, 38, Hassan, 33, and Kurd, 34, were assisted by a Kurdish interpreter throughout the trial after denying murder and alternative counts of manslaughter.

But they were unanimously found guilty of five counts of murder after 11 hours and 26 minutes of deliberations.

The trio were also convicted of conspiring with Ms Ijevleva to make a gain, by dishonestly pursuing an insurance claim in respect of the fire.

Ms Ijevleva, Mary Ragoobeer, 46, her teenage sons Shane and Sean, and 18-year-old Leah Beth Reek, 18, who was Shane's girlfriend, were all killed in the blast on Sunday February 25.

Around 26 litres of petrol was used to start the fire in the basement of the supermarket, triggering a massive explosion at 7.01pm.

CCTV and traffic camera footage released by police at the end of the trial shows people escaping from a nearby takeaway moments after the explosion, and rubble being blasted into the roadway as cars pass by.

Footage recovered by police from a neighbouring business showed Ali in shot three days before the blast - moments before the camera angle was moved.

Further images from the same CCTV unit a day before the fire showed a gloved hand moving the camera angle again - at a time when all three defendants were nearby.

Kurd was also recorded on a security camera as he escaped from the scene at the rear of the shop.

Ali, of Drake Close, Oldham, Hassan, of Eld Road, Coventry, and Kurd, of Hillary Place, Leicester, were remanded in custody and will be sentenced in mid-January.

During his opening address, Mr Herbert told jurors: "The explosion and the proceeding fire demolished a building and killed five people in the building - one person who was in the shop and four who were in the flat above enjoying a peaceful night in."

Mr Herbert said: "Even on camera 50 metres away you can see the explosion and the enormity of what happened.

"It was an explosion, the prosecution say, caused by many, many litres of petrol.

"The explosion and the fire that followed was deliberately caused by these defendants who intended to profit from loss of stock, contents and future loss of business from the shop.

"It was not an accident, the prosecution say, that the petrol used caused such devastating damage."

Describing the unlawful killing of Ms Ijevleva, Mr Herbert added: "The defendants thought she knew too much and decided to leave her to die in the explosion that they created.

"In other words, the devastation that they caused was carried out with the intention to kill."

In a statement issued by police after the verdict, Jose Ragoobeer, the husband of Mary, and father of Shane and Sean Ragoobeer, said: "Mary was a hard-working, loving mother and wife who was devoted to her family.

"Shane was in a relationship with a lovely girl called Leah. They were so happy together. Leah was a lovely girl who bought so much joy and happiness to our home.

"Sean was a good person and loving son who like Shane was always willing to help family and friends. He was looking forward to going to university and to study French and history."

The family of Leah said she had been looking forward to training as a nurse.

Speaking outside court, her older sister Molly said: "The light went out of our world on that terrible night. No parent should ever have to arrange a funeral for their child. It is so difficult to put into words how much we miss Leah."
A shootout in İzmir kills two gunmen while another one escapes. During the shootout a car bomb explodes, killing a police officer and court employee.