Suspicious banner on Istanbul highway leads to traffic chaos

ISTANBUL – Doğan News Agency

DHA photo

Thousands of Istanbul locals spent hours in traffic early on April 8 after a suspicious gas tube tied to banner that was left on a roadside in Istanbul’s Okmeydanı neighborhood alarmed police.

The highway, one of the two main roads in Turkey’s most crowded city, was shut down as a precaution, and bomb disposal experts were dispatched to the scene.

The experts later determined that the banner did not contain a bomb and the road was reopened after around two hours, but the traffic remained jammed for a while after the operation.

Police in Turkey’s major cities like Istanbul and Ankara are on high alert as the country has been rocked by recent suicide and car bomb attacks that claimed many lives and wounded hundreds.

Most recently, a terror attack that was carried out by an Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) suicide bomber on Istanbul’s İstiklal Street on March 19 killed four foreign tourists and wounded more than 30.