Eight girls wounded, one critically, in Istanbul school knife attack

A teenage girl wounded eight female students on Tuesday in a knife attack at a middle school in Istanbul, one of them critically, authorities said.

The attack took place early in the morning at a school in Basaksehir, in the city's northwest. Police detained the suspected attacker, who is 15. Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu said eight girls were wounded: one critically, two moderately and the rest less seriously.

Istanbul Governor Davut Gul said the suspect stabbed the girls "indiscriminately" after entering the building in a school uniform. She "lives in the same neighborhood but attends another school," he added.

The attack comes after a year of shocking violence in Turkish schools. In April, a 14-year-old boy killed a teacher and nine children aged 10 and 11 at a middle school in Kahramanmaras, in the south.

The attacker, the son of a retired police officer, was killed at the scene. It was the deadliest school attack in Turkey's history and led to the dismissal of the deputy education minister.

The day before, a former student had opened fire at his high school in Sanliurfa, in the southeast, wounding 16 people before taking his own life. Last month, a teenager fired shots outside a school in western Turkey, wounding 11 students, three of them seriously, before being arrested.