Istanbul terror attack bombers came from former USSR
The individuals who carried out the suicide bombings and gun attack on Istanbul’s international airport this week were from Kyrgyzstan, Russia (Dagestan) and Uzbekistan. A total of 43 people died and more than 230 others were injured in the deadliest attack on Turkish soil this year. On 30 June, police detained 13 suspects in Istanbul and several more in the western city of Izmir. A pro-government newspaper has reported that the attack’s suspected mastermind was Chechen, Akhmed Chatayev. He is currently on a UN sanctions list as an ISIS leader responsible for training Russian-speaking militants. The Turkish authorities have refused to say whether Chatayev is part of their investigations and it is unclear where he currently is. In October 2015, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, announced that between 5,000 and 7,000 individuals from mainly Muslim areas of the former USSR had been recruited into ISIS.

Turkey

Three suspected Islamic State suicide bombers who killed 43 people in a gun and bomb attack at Istanbul airport this week were from Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, a Turkish government official said on Thursday.

Ozan Kose, AFP | Forensic police work the explosion site at Ataturk airport on June 28, 2016 in Istanbul after two explosions followed by gunfire hit Turkey's biggest airport, killing at least 46 people.

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The attack on Europe’s third-busiest airport was the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings in Turkey this year.

The three bombers opened fire to create panic outside, before two of them got inside the terminal building and blew themselves up. The third detonated his explosives at the entrance. More than 230 others were injured.

The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper said the Russian bomber was from Dagestan, which borders Chechnya, where Moscow has led two wars against separatists and religious militants since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

The Kyrgyz security service declined to comment, while the Uzbek security service could not immediately be reached.

Turkish police detained 13 people, three of them foreigners, in raids across Istanbul in connection with Tuesday night’s attack.

Counter-terrorism teams led by police special forces launched simultaneous raids at 16 locations in the city, two officials told Reuters. Turkish authorities have said they believe the Islamic State (IS) group was behind the airport attack.

Yeni Safak said the organiser of the attack was suspected to be a man called Akhmed Chatayev, of Chechen origin. Chatayev is identified on a United Nations sanctions list as a leader in the IS group responsible for training Russian-speaking militants, and as wanted by Russian authorities.

The Hurriyet newspaper named one of the attackers as Osman Vadinov, also Chechen, and said he had come from Raqqa, the heart of Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria.

Turkish officials did not confirm to Reuters that either Chatayev or Vadinov were part of the investigation.

Growing Threats

Wars in neighbouring Syria and Iraq have fostered a home-grown IS group network blamed for a series of suicide bombings in Turkey, including two others this year targeting foreign tourists in the heart of Istanbul.

Critics say Turkey woke up too late to the threat from the IS group, focusing instead in the early part of the Syrian civil war on trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad, arguing there could be no peace without his departure.

Once a reluctant partner in the fight against the IS group, Ankara adjusted its military rules of engagement this month to allow NATO allies to carry out more patrol flights along its border with Syria.

It has also carried out repeated raids on suspected IS group safe houses in Turkey.

Nine suspected militants, thought to have been in contact with IS group members in Syria, were detained in dawn raids in four districts of the Aegean coastal city of Izmir on Thursday, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

It said they were accused of financing, recruiting and providing logistical support to the group.

The military killed two suspected IS group members trying to enter Turkey illegally at the weekend, security sources said on Thursday.

One of the suspects, a Syrian national, was thought to have been plotting a suicide bomb attack in either the capital Ankara or the southern province of Adana, home to Incirlik, a major base used by US and Turkish forces through which some coalition air strikes against the IS group are carried out.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)



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