Police suspect the bomb was made of A-4 plastic explosive, often used by separatist Kurdish militants, and detonated by remote control, officials told the agency.

The explosion occurred at around 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT) in a residential neighborhood, shattering windows and damaging parked cars.

Television footage showed police sealing off the site of the blast as a woman escorted a schoolboy across a street littered with metal and glass debris.

Witnesses said the explosion took place seconds before a bus carrying military personnel arrived at the site.

Residents displayed Turkish flags at their windows and balconies to symbolically condemn "terrorists" -- the official term for the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), classified as a terror group by Ankara, the European Union and the United States.

Several bomb explosions in Turkish cities have been blamed on the PKK since late March, when a week of deadly Kurdish riots rattled urban centers in the mainly Kurdish southeast.

At least two of the bombings, which killed one and wounded several others, were claimed as reprisal against police response to the riots, in which 16 people were killed, by a radical Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), which officials say is a front for the PKK.

Separately, officials told Anatolia that the police in Izmir detained an alleged Kurdish militant suspected of carrying out an earlier bomb attack in the city and a suspected accomplice.

A street vendor's cart loaded with plastic explosives went off after being rolled down a hill towards a police building on March 4, injuring one person. The TAK claimed responsibility for the blast.

Police discovered a similar, newly bought cart in the house of the suspected bomber, which might have been destined for another attack, Anatolia said.

The suspect was also believed to be responsible for planting a bomb in a flower pot left at a bus station in Izmir on March 30, which the police defused.