The blast, which occurred a day dozens were injured in a series of explosions in another seaside tourist town and Turkey's main city Istanbul, struck opposite a market near a municipal building, the Anatolia news agency quoted local police spokesman Akif Aktug as saying.

A number of wounded people were treated on the spot, some of them bleeding heavily and with wounds to the face, a tourist who witnessed the blast told AFP, adding that emergency services arrived and put a security cordon in place.

She said the explosion occurred around 3:40 pm (1340 GMT) in a cafe on the town's main avenue.

Three people were killed and 18 injured, according to Turkey's NTV television. CNN-Turk television reported 20 wounded. Israel's foreign ministry in Jerusalem said four Israelis were lightly injured in the blast.

Aktug said the cause of the explosion was not known.

Late Sunday another explosion ripped through a bus in the southwestern resort of Marmaris, injuring 21 people, including 10 British tourists. Another earlier bombing on Sunday injured six Turks in Istanbul.

The Kurdish rebel group Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) on Monday claimed responsibility for those blasts. The group has claimed previous similar attacks that have targeted tourist destinations.

In a statement on its website, Kurdish group said it carried out the attacks on Marmaris and Istanbul in revenge for the detention of Abdullah Ocalan, the figurehead of the fight for Kurdish independence in southeastern Turkey.

Ocalan has been in jail since 1999, serving a life sentence for his activities as head of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged an armed struggle for self-rule since 1984. In this time the Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives.

The TAK, believed to be backed by the PKK, announced in April that it would target tourist destinations as a way of attacking a valuable source of revenue for the country's government.

It claimed an attack in July 2005 which killed five people including an Irish teenager and a British woman in the western resort of Kusadasi.