ISTANBUL A suicide bomber attacked a police station in Istanbul on Wednesday, killing at least two people and injuring five, officials said.

"Our initial evaluation is that this is a suicide bombing," Istanbul Police Chief Kazim Abanoz told Reuters television at the scene of the attack in a bustling commercial district of the city.

Officials at nearby hospitals said body parts of a man and one other corpse had been brought from the police station, the state-run Anatolian News Agency said.

It said at least another five people had been taken to hospital with injuries, one with wounds to the head and face. At least one of the wounded was a police officer.

It was not immediately possible to confirm that the bomber died in the attack.

Police told Reuters a bomber had managed to get inside a kitchen area on an upper floor of the police station, where broken glass and bits of wood and steel were scattered below a partially burned-out room.

There was no word on who might be responsible for the attack, but Turkish officials have warned of reprisals from leftist urban guerrillas for a bloody crackdown last month on jails across the country to end hunger strikes.

At least 32 people died as a result of the crackdown, nearly all of them prisoners. Two policemen also died.

Most of the hunger strikers belong to a range of banned far-left organizations which Turkish officials hold responsible for killing two riot police in an ambush in Istanbul last month and scores of attacks on police over the last decade.

A bomb exploded in the center of Istanbul shortly after the start of the New Year, injuring at least 10 people in what officials described as "a terror operation".

(Reuter)