ISTANBUL — Turkey declared a national day of mourning and paid tribute to the dead Sunday after two bombings in Istanbul killed 38 people and wounded 155 others near a soccer stadium. The carnage was claimed by a Turkey-based Kurdish militant group.

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, or TAK, said two of its members had sacrificed their lives in the Saturday night attack that targeted security forces outside the Besiktas stadium shortly after the conclusion of a match.

“Two of our comrades were heroically martyred in the attack,” according to a statement posted on TAK’s website.

It described the blasts as reprisal for state violence in the southeast and the ongoing imprisonment of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. TAK is considered by authorities as a PKK offshoot.

The twin car-and-suicide bombings near the stadium enraged top officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who vowed to hunt down the perpetrators. The attack was the latest large-scale assault to traumatize a nation confronting an array of security threats.

Turkey is a NATO member and a partner in the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State group.

The attack targeted police officers, killing 30 of them along with seven civilians and an unidentified person, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters. He said 13 people had been arrested in connection with the “terrorist” act.

In an address at a funeral for the slain police officers before TAK’s statement was released, a furious Soylu condemned Kurdish rebels and their allies in the West, referring to the PKK as “animals.”

“Have you accomplished anything beyond being the servants, pawns and hit men of certain dark forces, of your dark Western partners?” he asked.

Turkish officials didn’t make any further comments after the TAK claim of responsibility was posted.

The battle between the PKK and the Turkish state has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of citizens. Turkish officials frequently accuse the West of supporting the Kurdish insurgency and of interfering in Ankara’s fight against the militants.

Erdogan vowed his country would fight “the curse of terrorism till the end” after paying a visit to some of the wounded at Haseki Hospital in Istanbul.

Hundreds of flag-carrying demonstrators marched along Istanbul’s coastline toward the stadium at the heart of the blast area. Flags flew at half-staff across the country and at Turkey’s foreign missions. Passers-by placed flowers on barriers surrounding the soccer stadium.

The first and larger explosion took place about 10:30 p.m. Saturday after Besiktas beat Bursaspor 2-1 in the Turkish Super League. Erdogan said the attack’s timing aimed to maximize the loss of life, but most fans had left before the detonation.

Soylu said the first blast was caused by a passing vehicle that detonated in an area where police special forces were located at the stadium exit. A riot police bus appears to have been the target. Moments later, a person who had been stopped in nearby Macka Park committed suicide by triggering explosives, according to the minister.

He said 136 people remained hospitalized Sunday after the attack, including 14 in intensive care.

TAK claimed the Turkish people weren’t their target but warned “no one should expect a comfortable life” as long as the ruling party “continues to torture the mothers of Kurdistan every day.”

Armed conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish militants resumed in July 2015 after peace talks unraveled. While much of the violence has concentrated in the impoverished and pre-dominantly Kurdish southeast, it has also spread to other cities, including the capital, Ankara, where TAK has claimed February and March suicide bombings.

Experts have determined that up to 400 kilograms (880 pounds) of explosives were used in the car bomb, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told CNN Turk.

To the mournful sound of trumpets, funeral services were held at Istanbul’s police headquarters for some of the slain officers. Their comrades solemnly carried the coffins, which were draped in the Turkish flag, as a sea of mourners wept around them.

Erdogan presided over a security meeting after the funeral ceremony and hospital visit.

Soccer fans proved their resilience by showing up to watch a game pitting Istanbul’s Galatasaray and Gaziantepspor at a different stadium.

“What happened last night was extremely saddening but they need to know that Turkish people will not yield to such things,” Galatasaray supporter Erkan Duman told The Associated Press. “It’s not like we will give up things, especially things we love, just because they want us to.”

Turkey has witnessed a spate of IS and Kurdish-linked attacks this year. Saturday’s bombings were one of the bloodiest to hit Istanbul, a city at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, until recently a popular tourist destination.

That changed after a series of IS-linked suicide bombings targeting tourists, including a sophisticated attack on the city’s Ataturk Airport in June that killed 44 people and wounded scores of others. PKK-linked militants have claimed other deadly attacks in Ankara, Istanbul and areas in southeast Turkey.

A state of emergency is in force following a failed July 15 coup attempt and the resulting government crackdown on alleged coup sympathizers has landed thousands in jail and forced tens of thousands of people from their jobs. Critics call the move a witch hunt.

Story: Dominique Soguel

CAIRO — A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt’s main Coptic Christian cathedral killed 25 people and wounded another 49 during Sunday mass, in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory.

The attack came two days after a bomb elsewhere in Cairo killed six policemen, an assault claimed by a shadowy group that authorities say is linked to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Islamic militants have targeted Christians in the past, including a New Year’s Day bombing at a church in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria in 2011 that killed at least 21 people.

Egypt’s official MENA news agency said an assailant lobbed a bomb into a chapel close to the outer wall of St Mark’s Cathedral, seat of Egypt’s Orthodox Christian church and home to the office of its spiritual leader, Pope Tawadros II, who is currently visiting Greece.

Egyptian state TV and the Health Ministry gave the casualty toll.

Witnesses said the explosion may have been caused by an explosive device planted inside the chapel. Conflicting accounts are common in the immediate aftermath of attacks.

The blast took place as a Sunday mass being held in the chapel was about to end and coincided with a national holiday in Egypt marking the birth of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Most of the victims are thought to be women and children.

State television aired calls by several Cairo hospitals for blood donations.

An Associated Press reporter who arrived at the scene shortly after the blast saw blood-stained pews and shards of glass scattered across the chapel’s floor. Men and women wailed and cried outside. AP photos showed a broken pair of ladies’ spectacles on the ground next to a girl’s boots with leopard spots and a pink ribbon.

“I found bodies, many of them women, lying on the pews. It was a horrible scene,” said cathedral worker Attiya Mahrous, who rushed to the chapel after he heard the blast. His clothes and hands were stained with blood and his hair matted with dust.

“I saw a headless woman being carried away,” Mariam Shenouda said as she pounded her chest in grief. “Everyone was in a state of shock. We were scooping up people’s flesh off the floor,” she said.

“There were children. What have they done to deserve this? I wish I had died with them instead of seeing these scenes,” she added.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday’s attack, which has drawn a flurry of condemnations by government and religious leaders as well as assertions of unity between Egypt’s Muslim majority and Christians, who account for about 10 percent of the country’s 92 million people. A crowd of several hundreds gathered outside the cathedral to condemn the attack, as scores of policemen sealed off the area.

Egypt has seen a wave of attacks by Islamic militants since the military overthrew President Mohammed Morsi, a freely elected leader who hailed from the Brotherhood, in 2013. Many of Morsi’s supporters blamed Christians for supporting the overthrow, and scores of churches and other Christian-owned properties in southern Egypt were ransacked that year.

The authorities have since 2013 waged a sweeping crackdown, jailing thousands of mostly Islamist dissidents and killing hundreds in clashes sparked by demonstrations.

Egypt’s Christians have long complained of discrimination in Egypt, contending they are denied top jobs in a wide range of fields, including academia and security apparatuses. Many Christians were relieved when Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood were ousted in 2013 after just one year in power.

The church and many Christians have since rallied behind el-Sissi, although there have been growing voices of dissent within the community, arguing that little has changed in their lives under his rule, with their churches and property frequently attacked or torched by mobs of villagers led by militants in provinces south of Cairo.

Story: Mariam Fam, Hamza Hendawi

ISTANBUL — Twin attacks by a suicide bomber and a car bomber near an Istanbul soccer stadium Saturday night killed 29 people and wounded 166 others in the latest large-scale assault to traumatize a nation confronting an array of security threats.