A female suicide bomber attacked a police station in Istanbul on Tuesday by blowing herself up. The Turkish authorities said that the explosion left one policeman dead and another wounded.

The bombing attack had occurred in the Sultan Ahmet district which is currently a popular tourist destination.

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The governor of Istanbul, Vasip Sahin, recounted to the media that the woman had entered the police station and reported that her wallet was missing right before she detonated the explosives.

He said that the police are still trying to identify the woman who died in Tuesday's attack.

"She spoke in English, entered (the police station) on the pretext that she had lost her wallet," he said.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters that the bomber was carrying two more explosives with her. However, they had been safely defused. He said that police were able to intervene immediately and prevent even more casualties.

The explosives - identified as hand grenades - were all carried by the bomber. She was holding one in her hand, while the other two were in her bag and coat pocket.

She was only able to set off one before the policeman shot her.

This attack was the second on police within a week in Istanbul. Last Thursday, police subdued a man after he threw grenades and fired a weapon at officers near the prime minister's office.

Responsibility for the attack was emphatically accepted by the leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front or DHKP-C. The group says that it seeks a socialist state.

They are considered to be a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union.

Since peace talks were opened in 2012 with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, suicide attacks have been rare in Turkey. The talks ended a 30-year insurgency.

However, the DHKP-C is now beginning to carry out similar sporadic attacks that also include a suicide bombing on the U.S. embassy in 2013. The attack killed one security guard.

TagsIstanbul, Turkey, suicide bombing, female bomber, Sultan Ahmet