A car bomb in the Turkish city of Kayseri has killed 13 soldiers and wounded 48 on Saturday (17 December).

The blast destroyed a bus carrying the soldiers who had been allowed to visit a local market. An army spokesman confirmed to Reuters that civilians may have also been injured.

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Images from the bombing, which took place near the Erciyes University campus at around 8.45am local time, show that the blast ripped through the bus and left a massive whole on one side.

The street was covered in glass and fragments of the bus, and civilians could be seen dragging bodies away.

The attack comes just a week after 44 people were killed in Istanbul claimed by Kurdish militants called the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK).

Istanbul police said the suicide bomber has now been identified as 20-year-old Baruk Yavuz, from Turkey's southeastern province of Şanlıurfa.

Two blasts went off outside the Beşiktaş's Vodafone Arena Stadium and took place within 45 seconds of each other.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the most recent attack, but Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak likened the bus attack to the twin bombings a week earlier.

"The car bomb attack resembles the Beşiktaş attack in terms of its style," he said, reported Reuters, adding the attack would not put Turkey off of its goal of fighting militancy.

Turkey faces multiple security threats including a spillover from the fight against Islamic State (Isis) in northern Syria, where it is a member of a US-led coalition against the militant group.

It also faces regular attacks from Kurdish militants, who have been waging a three-decade insurgency for autonomy in a largely Kurdish south-east Turkey.

The government has tried to impose a temporary blackout on coverage of the explosion.

The instruction from the prime minister's office urged the media to refrain from publishing anything that may cause "fear in the public, panic and disorder and which may serve the aims of terrorist organisations", the Associated Press reported.