Tag Archives: Istanbul

Suspected Istanbul nightclub attacker wanted to kill Christians

Flowers and pictures of the victims are placed near the entrance of Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey,

ANKARA (Reuters) – An Islamist gunman, who has confessed to the killing of 39 people at an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Day, told a court that he had aimed to kill Christians during his attack, Hurriyet newspaper said on Monday, citing testimony given this weekend.

Abdulgadir Masharipov initially planned to attack the area around Taksim Square but switched to the upscale Reina nightclub due to the heightened security measures around the square, Hurriyet said, without saying how it had obtained the document.

Reuters was not given access to the confidential document.

“I did not take part in any acts before the Reina event. I thought of carrying out an act against Christians on their holiday, to take revenge for their killing acts across the world. My goal was to kill Christians,” he was quoted as saying.

“If I had decided to do so, I would have used a gun and killed the people there (Taksim). There was no entrance to Taksim, it was swarming with police. I changed my mind after that,” Huuriyet quoted him as saying in the court document.

Turkey is a majority Muslim nation. Turks, as well as visitors from several Arab nations, India and Canada, were among those killed in the attack. Victims included a Bollywood film producer, a Turkish waiter, a Lebanese fitness trainer and a Jordanian bar owner.

Islamic State claimed responsibility the day after the attack, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria. Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State and launched an incursion into neighboring Syria in August to drive jihadists and Kurdish militia fighters away from its borders.

Masharipov, an Uzbek, acknowledged his membership of Islamic State and said the jihadist group would develop a presence in predominantly non-Muslim countries if it had the power, Hurriyet said.

Masharipov said he and his family had originally planned to travel to Syria from Uzbekistan, but stayed in Turkey because they were unable to do so. He said he had not taken part in any meetings or phone calls with the group while in Turkey.

He was caught in a police raid in Istanbul on Jan. 16 and was formally charged with membership of an armed terrorist group, multiple counts of murder, possession of heavy weapons and attempting to overturn the constitutional order, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

In his testimony this weekend, he told officials he would prefer the death penalty as a sentence, and said he did not regret his actions, which he believed were not targeting Turkey, but rather were acts of revenge.

“It would be better if a death penalty was ruled. I threw the stun grenades after my ammunition had finished, nothing happened. I remained alive, but I had gone to die there,” he said, according to Hurriyet.

Turkey formally abandoned the death penalty in 2002 as part of its European Union accession talks, and its restoration would probably spell the end of Turkey’s talks to join the bloc.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has revived the question of reintroducing the punishment in the wake of a failed July coup, saying he would approve the change if parliament passed it.

“Why do they say I work against Turkey or am against Turkey? I don’t think I did anything against the Turkish republic, I did not do anything against Turkey. I took revenge,” Masharipov was cited as saying.

“I do not regret what I did. I believe I retaliated.”

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan and Louise Ireland)

Turkey says captures nightclub attacker who acted for Islamic State

A man places flowers at the entrance of Reina nightclub, which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey January 3, 2017.

By Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish authorities have captured the gunman who killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Day, an Uzbek national they said was trained in Afghanistan and had clearly acted on behalf of Islamic State.

The suspect, named by Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin as Abdulgadir Masharipov, was caught in a police raid late on Monday in a hideout in an outlying Istanbul suburb after a two-week manhunt.

Masharipov, who was captured with four others, had admitted his guilt and his fingerprints matched those at the scene, Sahin told a news conference.

“He knew four languages and was well-educated,” Sahin said, adding he was born in 1983 in Uzbekistan and received training in Afghanistan.

There were strong indications he entered Turkey illegally through its eastern borders in January 2016 and it was clear the attack was carried out on behalf of Islamic State, Sahin said.

The jihadist group claimed responsibility a day after the mass shooting, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.

Masharipov was captured with an Iraqi man and three women from Africa, one of them from Egypt, in the Esenyurt district on Istanbul’s western outskirts, about 30 km (19 miles) from the Reina nightclub.

Two pistols, mobile phone SIM cards, two drones and $197,000 in cash were also seized, Sahin said.

Dogan news agency published a photo of the alleged attacker with a black eye, a cut above his eyebrow and bloodstains on his face and t-shirt. It broadcast footage showing plain-clothes police leading a man in a white sweater to a waiting car.

He was being questioned at Istanbul police headquarters, while other people were detained in raids across the city targeting Uzbek Islamic State cells, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

“WE SAID OUR GOODBYES”

The gunman appeared to have repeatedly changed addresses before and after the attack. Remaining in Istanbul, he evaded a 16-day nationwide manhunt that included operations in cities from Izmir on the Aegean coast, to Konya in central Anatolia, and Hatay near the southern border with Syria.

“Five addresses were tracked and operations were carried out against them. He was found at one of the five,” Sahin said.

Masharipov and those seized with him late on Monday had moved to the Esenyurt address around three days ago, he said.

Neighbours in the modern, five-storey apartment building where he was found said they had never met him, although they had seen the African women who lived with him. A woman living directly below told Reuters the apartment had previously been lived in by seven or eight Syrians, who left late last summer.

Masharipov first rented an apartment in Basaksehir, another outlying Istanbul district, before switching addresses a day or two before the attack, the Istanbul governor said.

The Hurriyet newspaper said he was married with two children, was a dual Uzbek-Tajik national and spoke Russian, Arabic, Chinese and Turkish, as well as Uzbek. He received two years training in Afghanistan and Pakistan and was believed to have entered Turkey via Iran, it said.

His wife was detained last week in a raid in Maltepe, a coastal district on the Asian side of Istanbul, and their one-and-a-half year-old daughter was taken into care, Hurriyet said.

“We said our goodbyes and he left the house (on the night of the attack),” it quoted her as saying in a statement to police.

Foreign currency banknotes and various documents are seen in the bedroom of a hideout where the alleged attacker of Reina nightclub was caught by Turkish police last night, in Esenyurt neighbourhood in Istanbul, Turkey,

Foreign currency banknotes and various documents are seen in the bedroom of a hideout where the alleged attacker of Reina nightclub was caught by Turkish police last night, in Esenyurt neighbourhood in Istanbul, Turkey, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Osman Orsal 

About 50 people have been detained in raids on 152 addresses since the shooting. Investigators analysed 7,200 hours of camera footage in the search and police received more than 2,000 tip-offs, Sahin said.

“WAR WITH TERROR” WILL CONTINUE

“I congratulate our police who caught the perpetrator of the Ortakoy massacre,” Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, who is also the government spokesman, said on social network Twitter.

“Our war with terror and the powers behind it will continue to the end,” he said.

On Jan. 1, the attacker shot his way into the nightclub and opened fire with an automatic rifle. He reloaded his weapon several times and shot the wounded as they lay on the ground.

Turks as well as visitors from several Arab nations, India and Canada were among those killed in the attack.

NATO member Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State and launched an incursion into neighbouring Syria in August to drive the radical Sunni militants, and Kurdish militia fighters, away from its borders.

The jihadist group has been blamed for at least half a dozen attacks on civilian targets in Turkey over the past 18 months. But, other than assassinations, the new year attack was the first it has directly claimed.

The shooting in Istanbul’s Ortakoy neighbourhood, an upscale district on the Bosphorus shore, followed a year in which Turkey was shaken by a series of attacks by radical Islamist and Kurdish militants and by a failed coup.

President Tayyip Erdogan has said the attack, which targeted a club popular with local celebrities and moneyed foreigners, was designed to divide the largely Sunni Muslim nation.

(Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova in Istanbul; Editing by Nick Tattersall, Timothy Heritage, Anna Willard)

Turkish cargo jet crash kills 37 in Kyrgyzstan

Plane debris of Turkish cargo jet crash

BISHKEK (Reuters) – A Turkish cargo jet crashed near Kyrgyzstan’s Manas airport on Monday, killing at least 37 people, most of them residents of a village struck by the Boeing 747 as it tried to land in dense fog, Kyrgyz officials said.

According to the airport administration, the plane was supposed to make a stopover at Manas, near the capital city Bishkek, on its way from Hong Kong to Istanbul. It crashed when trying to land in poor visibility at 7:31 a.m. (8:31 p.m. ET on Sunday).

The doomed plane plowed on for a few hundred meters (yards) through the Dachi Suu village, home to hundreds of families, shattering into pieces and damaging dozens of buildings.

Plumes of smoke rose above the crash site, with some mudbrick buildings razed to the ground and others pierced by parts of the plane.

The torn-off tail assembly, rotated upside down, towered above a one-storey house. A football pitch-sized area nearby was completely leveled and covered with twisted pieces of metal.

Locals said they had initially thought the area was struck by an earthquake.

“Around seven o’clock in the morning I heard a strong swat (noise) and after that all the nearest houses were shaken,” said local resident Andrei Andreyev.

“Of course, everyone got frightened and started to run out of the houses to the street. Nobody understood what was going on because there was a fog, the weather was not good.”

Initial estimates put the death toll from the crash at 37, said Kyrgyzstan’s emergencies ministry. Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev announced Tuesday would be a national day of mourning.

Turkish Airlines <THYAO.IS> said in a statement that the cargo flight was operated by ACT Airlines and neither the Boeing 747-400 aircraft nor the crew belonged to Turkish Airlines.

Turkish cargo operator ACT Airlines also said the jet was theirs.

“Our TC-MCL signed plane, flying on Jan. 16 from Hong Kong to Bishkek, crashed on landing at Bishkek at the end of the runway for an unknown reason,” ACT Airlines said in an emailed statement.

“More information will be disclosed concerning our four-person team when we get clear information.”

(Reporting by Olga Dzyubenko; Additional reporting by Marlis Myrzakul Uulu in Bishkek, Daren Butler in Istanbul and Venus Wu in Hong Kong; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Toby Chopra)

Turkey says Istanbul attacker’s identity established, manhunt goes on

Police special forces patrol outisde the Reina nightclub which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey

By Nick Tattersall and Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey has established the identity of the gunman who killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Day, its foreign minister said on Wednesday, as police rounded up more suspected accomplices.

In an interview with the state-run Anadolu news agency, Mevlut Cavusoglu gave no further details about the gunman, whom Turkish officials have not named.

The attacker shot his way into the exclusive Reina nightclub on Sunday then opened fire with an automatic rifle, reloading his weapon half a dozen times and shooting the wounded as they lay on the ground. Turks as well as visitors from several Arab nations, India and Canada were among the dead.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.

Turkish media reports have said the attacker is believed to be an ethnic Uighur, possibly from Kyrgyzstan.

The shooting in Istanbul’s Ortakoy neighbourhood, an upscale district on the Bosphorus shore, came after a year in which NATO member Turkey was shaken by a series of attacks by radical Islamist and Kurdish militants and by a failed coup.

President Tayyip Erdogan said the attack, which targeted a club popular with local celebrities and moneyed foreigners, was being exploited to try to divide the largely Sunni Muslim nation and that the state never meddled in how people lived.

“There is no point trying to blame the Ortakoy attack on differences in lifestyles,” he said in a speech to local administrators at the presidential palace in Ankara.

“Nobody’s lifestyle is under systematic threat in Turkey. We will never allow this,” he said in comments broadcast live. It was his first public speech since the shooting.

Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, which condemned the attack in its immediate aftermath, had issued a statement in December saying celebrating the New Year did not fit with Muslim values, triggering criticism from some parts of Turkish society.

Such calls have made many secular Turks suspicious of the Islamist background of Erdogan and the ruling AK Party, seeing them as bent on eroding the secular principles of the modern republic founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk after the fall of the Ottoman empire. Erdogan rejects such suggestions.

MORE DETENTIONS

The attacker appeared to have been well versed in guerrilla warfare and may have trained in Syria, a security source and a newspaper report said on Tuesday.

The Haberturk newspaper said police investigations revealed that the gunman had entered Turkey from Syria and went to the central city of Konya in November, travelling with his wife and two children so as not to attract attention.

On Wednesday, police in the western city of Izmir detained 27 people who had travelled from Konya, citing suspicion of links to the attack, the Dogan news agency said.

They included women and children. Video footage showed some of them being brought out of an apartment building to waiting vehicles.

Seven Uighur Turks were also detained at a restaurant in the working-class Istanbul neighbourhood of Zeytinburnu, where the gunman was thought to have gone by taxi after the attack and asked to borrow money to pay the driver, Haberturk said.

The newspaper said raids had been carried out on 50 addresses in the district, where many Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Uighurs live, and 14 people detained in total.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun, Tulay Karadeniz and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Gunman in Istanbul nightclub attack may have trained in Syria

An injured woman is carried to an ambulance from a nightclub where a gun attack took place during a New Year party in Istanbul, Turkey.

By Humeyra Pamuk and Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – The gunman who killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Day in an attack claimed by Islamic State appears to have been well versed in guerrilla warfare and may have trained in Syria, a newspaper report and a security source said on Tuesday.

The attacker, who remains at large, shot dead a police officer and a civilian at the entrance to the exclusive Reina nightclub on Sunday. He then opened fire with an automatic rifle inside, reloading his weapon half a dozen times and shooting the wounded as they lay on the ground.

In a statement claiming the attack on Monday, Islamic State described the club as a gathering point for Christians celebrating their “apostate holiday” and said the shooting was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.

“The assailant has experience in combat for sure … he could have been fighting in Syria for years,” one security source told Reuters, saying that he was likely to have been directed in his actions by the jihadist group.

A Turkish police handout picture made avalible on January 2, 2017 of a suspect in Istanbul nightclub attack which killed at least 39 people on New Year's Eve.

A Turkish police handout picture made avalible on January 2, 2017 of a suspect in Istanbul nightclub attack which killed at least 39 people on New Year’s Eve. REUTERS/Reuters TV/Handout

The Haberturk newspaper said police investigations revealed that the gunman had entered Turkey from Syria and went to the central city of Konya in November, traveling with his wife and two children so as not to attract attention.

Some Turkish media reported that police were seeking a 28-year-old Kyrgyz national believed to be the gunman.

Kyrgyzstan’s security service said it was in touch with Turkish authorities and that a man had been questioned by Kyrgyz police and then released.

Turkish officials have not commented on the details of the investigation. But government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus said on Monday that the authorities were close to fully identifying the gunman, after gathering fingerprints and information on his appearance.

The state-run Anadolu news agency said a total of 14 people had been detained. Two foreign nationals were detained at Istanbul’s main Ataturk airport in connection with the attack, broadcaster NTV said.

A selfie video of the alleged attacker, apparently walking around Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, was broadcast by Turkish news channels on Tuesday as police operations to track him down continued.

Kurtulmus made no reference to the Islamic State claim of responsibility on Monday but said it was clear Turkey’s military operations in Syria had annoyed terrorist groups and those behind them.

NATO member Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State and since August has been conducting military operations inside Syria to drive the radical Sunni militants, as well as Kurdish militia fighters, away from its borders.

Islamic State has been blamed for at least half a dozen attacks on civilian targets in Turkey over the past 18 months; but, other than assassinations, it was the first time it has directly claimed any of them. It made the statement on one of its Telegram channels, a method used after attacks elsewhere.

Haberturk cited a barman at the club as saying the gunman had thrown explosive devices several times during the shooting spree, apparently in order to disorientate people and give himself time to reload.

Several witnesses who spoke to Reuters also said there had been small explosions during the attack.

(Additional reporting by Olga Dzyubenko in Bishkek; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Richard Lough)

Kurdistan Workers Party claim responsibility for Istanbul attack that killed 38

Wreaths, placed by representatives of foreign missions, are pictured at the scene of Saturday's blasts in Istanbul, Turkey

By David Dolan and Tuvan Gumrukcu

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – An offshoot of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) claimed responsibility on Sunday for twin bombings that killed 38 people and wounded 155 outside an Istanbul soccer stadium, an attack for which the Turkish government vowed vengeance.

The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), which has claimed several other deadly attacks in Turkey this year, said in a statement on its website that it was behind Saturday night’s blasts, which shook a nation still trying to recover from a failed military coup and a number of bombings this year..

Saturday’s attacks took place near the Vodafone Arena, home to Istanbul’s Besiktas soccer team, about two hours after a match at the stadium and appeared to target police officers. The first was a car bomb outside the stadium, followed within a minute by a suicide bomb attack in an adjacent park.

TAK, which has claimed responsibility for an Ankara bombing that killed 37, is an offshoot of the PKK, which has carried out a violent, three-decade insurgency, mainly in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast.

“What we must focus on is this terror burden. Our people should have no doubt we will continue our battle against terror until the end,” Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan told reporters after meeting injured victims in an Istanbul hospital.

The daughter of police officer Hasim Usta who was killed in Saturday's blasts (C), prays during a funeral ceremony in

The daughter of police officer Hasim Usta who was killed in Saturday’s blasts (C), prays during a funeral ceremony in Istanbul, Turkey, December 12, 2016. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

‘WE WILL HAVE VENGEANCE’

Speaking at a funeral for five of the police officers at the Istanbul police headquarters, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said: “Sooner or later we will have our vengeance. This blood will not be left on the ground, no matter what the price, what the cost.”

Soylu also warned those who would offer support to the attackers on social media or elsewhere; comments aimed at pro-Kurdish politicians the government accuses of having links to the PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Europe and Turkey.

In recent months thousands of Kurdish politicians have been detained, including dozens of mayors and the leaders of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), parliament’s second-biggest opposition party, accused of having links to the PKK.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Energy Minister Berat Albayrak attend a funeral ceremony for police officer Hasim Usta who was killed in Saturday's blasts, in Istanbul, Turkey,

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Energy Minister Berat Albayrak attend a funeral ceremony for police officer Hasim Usta who was killed in Saturday’s blasts, in Istanbul, Turkey, December 12, 2016. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

The crackdown against Kurdish politicians has coincided with widespread purges of state institutions after July’s failed coup, which the government blames on followers of a U.S.-based Muslim cleric.

Turkey says the measures are necessary to defend its security, while rights groups and some Western allies accuse it of skirting the rule of law and trampling on freedoms.

In a statement, the pro-Kurdish HDP condemned the attack and urged the government to end what it called the language and politics of “polarization, hostility and conflict”.

Soylu said that the first explosion was at an assembly point for riot police. The second came as police surrounded the suicide bomber in the nearby Macka park.

Thirty-eight people died, including 30 police and seven civilians, he said. One person remained unidentified.

Thirteen people have been detained in connection with the attacks, Soylu said.

A total of 155 people were being treated in hospital, with 14 of them in intensive care and five in surgery, Health Minister Recep Akdag told a news conference.

Flags flew at half-mast and Sunday was declared a day of national mourning.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that Turkey’s allies should show solidarity with it in the fight against terrorism, a reference to disagreements with the United States over the fellow NATO member’s policy on Syria. Washington backs the Syrian Kurdish YPG in the fight against Islamic State. Turkey, meanwhile, says the militia is an extension of the PKK and a terrorist group.

In addition to the Kurdish insurgency, Turkey is battling Islamic State as a member of the United States-led coalition against the jihadist group. Less than a week ago Islamic State urged its supporters to target Turkey’s “security, military, economic and media establishment”.

‘MY SON WAS MASSACRED’

Video purporting to show the father of one of the victims, a 19-year-old medical student in Istanbul for a weekend visit, went viral on social media in Turkey.

“I don’t want my son to be a martyr, my son was massacred,” the footage showed the father saying. “His goal was to be a doctor and help people like this, but now I am carrying him back in a funeral car.”

Security remained tight in Istanbul, with police helicopters buzzing overhead in the Besiktas district near the stadium.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg condemned what he described as “horrific acts of terror”, while European leaders also sent messages of solidarity. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Erdogan to convey her condolences, sources in his office said.

The United States condemned the attack and said it stood with its NATO ally.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun, Ece Toksabay, Umit Bektas and Gulsen Solaker in Ankara, Humeyra Pamuk, Osman Orsal and Murad Sezer in Istanbul; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Dale Hudson and David Goodman)

Istanbul attack could be result of Turkey, EU ignoring Moscow

Paramedics push a stretcher at Turkey's largest airport, Istanbul Ataturk

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Wednesday it believed that the recent attack on Istanbul airport could be a result of Turkish and European security services ignoring Moscow’s signals about suspected “terrorists” hiding in Turkey and Europe.

“Over the past many years, the Russian side … has informed our Turkish and European colleagues that persons suspected of being linked to terrorism … find shelter both in Turkey and in a number of other European countries,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with journalists.

“In most cases such signals from the Russian side have not been given proper attention or any reaction by our colleagues. To our regret, these (Istanbul attacks) can be a consequence of such disregard.”

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Vladimir Soldatkin)

Turkey jails 17 over Istanbul attack

Paramedics help casualties outside Turkey's largest airport, Istanbul Ataturk, Turkey, following a blast

By Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey jailed 17 suspects on Tuesday, mostly foreigners, over last week’s suicide bombing at Istanbul’s main airport, which President Tayyip Erdogan described as the work of Islamic State militants from the ex-Soviet Union.

The arrests bring the total number of people jailed pending trial to 30 over the triple suicide bombing at Ataturk Airport, which killed 45 people and wounded hundreds, the deadliest in a series of bombings this year in Turkey.

It was followed by major attacks in Bangladesh, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in the past week, all apparently timed for the runup to Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Ramadan holy fasting month.

“The incident is of course completely within the framework of Daesh, a process conducted with their methods,” Erdogan told reporters after praying at an Istanbul mosque at the start of the holiday. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Three bombers opened fire to create panic outside the airport before two of them got inside and blew themselves up. The third militant detonated his explosives outside at the entrance to the international arrivals terminal.

“There are people from Dagestan, from Kyrgyzstan, from Tajikistan,” Erdogan said, referring to a mainly Muslim province of Russia’s North Caucasus region, and two former Soviet states in Central Asia. “Unfortunately, people from neighboring northern Caucasus countries are involved in this business.”

The 17 remanded in custody early on Tuesday included 11 foreigners. All were accused of “membership of an armed terrorist organization”, the private Dogan news agency said. Thirteen others were jailed on Sunday, including three foreigners.

The state-run Andolu news agency said last week that two of the bombers were Russian nationals. One government official has said the attackers were Russian, Uzbek and Kyrgyz nationals.

Moscow says that thousands of Russian citizens and citizens of other former Soviet states have joined Islamic State, traveling through Turkey to reach Syria. Russia fought two wars against Chechen separatists in the North Causcasus in the 1990s, and more recently has fought Islamist insurgents in Dagestan.

Russia and Turkey have been at odds over Moscow’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkey’s backing of rebels opposed to him, especially since last year when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the border.

But recent weeks have seen a thaw in relations between the two countries, with both citing a need to bury their differences to fight the common Islamic State foe.

The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper has said the organizer of the attack was suspected to be a Chechen double-amputee called Akhmed Chatayev. He is identified on a United Nations sanctions list as an Islamic State leader responsible for training Russian-speaking militants.

SUSPECTS DENY ALLEGATIONS

During questioning in court, as reported by Dogan, the suspects denied links to the bombers.

One of them, identified as a Russian citizen named as Smail A., said he stayed in a crowded house where he thought he would be able to read the Koran.

“When the police caught us they said terrorists had stayed there previously, but we didn’t know. I was in that house at the wrong time,” he was quoted as saying during questioning.

A suspect identified as Kamil D., also a Russian citizen, denied knowing one of the bombers, who has been identified as Rahim Bulgarov.

“The people constantly changed in the house where we stayed. Maybe he came and stayed but I don’t know him,” he said.

A third suspect, Turkish citizen Cengizhan C., said he embraced the views of Islamic State after following related groups on Facebook.

“I learned Daesh ideas. I bonded with them idea-wise. I believed what they stood for,” he said, adding he traveled to the border province of Sanliurfa with the aim of joining them in Syria but had been dissuaded from doing so.

In the wake of the attack, Turkey has beefed up security at airports and train stations, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Monday ahead Eid al-Fitr, which continues until Thursday.

Turkey is a member of a U.S.-led coalition fighting against Islamic State. It also faces a separate security threat from a Kurdish insurgency in its largely Kurdish southeast.

(Writing by Daren Butler; editing by David Dolan and Peter Graff)

Two explosions hit Istanbul’s main Ataturk airport, at least 10 dead

Paramedics push a stretcher at Turkey's largest airport, Istanbul Ataturk

By Daren Butler and Ayla Jean Yackley

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Two suicide bombers opened fire before blowing themselves up at the entrance to the main international airport in Istanbul on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding many more, Turkish officials and witnesses said.

Police fired shots to try to stop the attackers just before they reached a security checkpoint at the arrivals hall of the Ataturk airport but they blew themselves up, one of the officials said.

Speaking in parliament, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said that based on initial information he could only confirm there had been one attacker. He said 10 people were killed and around 20 wounded.

“According to information I have received, at the entrance to the Ataturk Airport international terminal a terrorist first opened fire with a Kalashnikov and then blew themself up,” he said in comments broadcast by CNN Turk.

The state-run Anadolu agency said around 60 people were wounded, six of them seriously.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Ataturk is Turkey’s largest airport and a major transport hub for international travelers. Pictures posted on social media from the site showed wounded people lying on the ground inside and outside one of the terminal buildings.

A witness told Reuters security officials prevented his taxi and other cars from entering the airport at around 9:50 pm (02:50 p.m. EDT). Drivers leaving the terminal shouted “Don’t enter! A bomb exploded!” from their windows to incoming traffic, he said.

Television footage showed ambulances rushing to the scene. One witness told CNN Turk that gunfire was heard from the car park at the airport. Taxis were ferrying wounded people from the airport, the witness said.

FLIGHTS HALTED

The head of Red Crescent, Kerem Kinik, said on CNN Turk that people should go to blood donation centres and not hospitals to give blood and called on people to avoid main roads to the airport to avoid blocking path of emergency vehicles.

Authorities halted the takeoff of scheduled flights from the airport and passengers were transferred to hotels, a Turkish Airlines official said. Earlier an airport official said some flights to the airport had been diverted.

Turkey has suffered a spate of bombings this year, including two suicide attacks in tourist areas of Istanbul blamed on Islamic State, and two car bombings in the capital, Ankara, which were claimed by a Kurdish militant group.

In the most recent attack, a car bomb ripped through a police bus in central Istanbul during the morning rush hour, killing 11 people and wounding 36 near the main tourist district, a major university and the mayor’s office.

Turkey, which is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, is also fighting Kurdish militants in its largely Kurdish southeast.

(Reporting by Istanbul bureau; Writing by David Dolan and Nick Tattesall; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Car bomb targeting police kills 11, wounds 36 in Instanbul

Fire engines stand beside a Turkish police bus which was targeted in a bomb attack in a central Istanbul district

By Humeyra Pamuk and Osman Orsal

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A car bomb ripped through a police bus in central Istanbul during the morning rush hour on Tuesday, killing 11 people and wounding 36 near the main tourist district, a major university and the mayor’s office.

The car was detonated as police buses passed, Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin told reporters, in the fourth major bombing in Turkey’s biggest city this year.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Kurdish militants have staged similar attacks on the security forces before, including one last month in Istanbul.

Security concerns were already hitting tourism and investor confidence. Wars in neighboring Syria and Iraq have fostered a home-grown Islamic State network blamed for a series of suicide bombings, while militants from the largely Kurdish southeast have increasingly struck in cities further afield.

President Tayyip Erdogan vowed the NATO member’s fight against terrorism would go on, describing the attack on officers whose jobs were to protect others as “unforgivable”.

“We will continue our fight against these terrorists until the end, tirelessly and fearlessly,” he told reporters after visiting some of the injured in a hospital near the blast site.

Sahin said the dead included seven police officers and four civilians and that the attack had targeted vehicles carrying members of a riot police unit. Three of the 36 wounded were in critical condition, he said.

The blast hit the Vezneciler district, between the headquarters of the local municipality and the campus of Istanbul University, not far from the city’s historic heart. It shattered windows in shops and a mosque and scattered debris over nearby streets.

“There was a loud bang, we thought it was lightning but right at that second the windows of the shop came down. It was extremely scary,” said Cevher, a shopkeeper who declined to give his surname. The blast was strong enough to topple all the goods from the shelves of his store.

The police bus that appeared to have borne the brunt of the explosion was tipped onto its roof on the side of the road. A second police bus was also damaged. The charred wreckage of several other vehicles lined the street.

GUNSHOTS

Several witness reported hearing gunshots, although there was confusion as to whether attackers had opened fire or whether police officers had been trying to protect colleagues.

“We were told that it was police trying to keep people away from the blast scene,” said Mustafa Celik, 51, who owns a tourism agency in a backstreet near the blast site. He likened the impact of the explosion to an earthquake.

“I felt the pressure as if the ground beneath me moved. I’ve never felt anything this powerful before,” he told Reuters.

U.S. Ambassador John Bass condemned the “heinous” attack and said on Twitter the United States stood “shoulder to shoulder” with Turkey in the fight against terrorism.

Turkey has suffered a spate of bombings this year, including two suicide attacks in tourist areas of Istanbul blamed on Islamic State, and two car bombings in the capital, Ankara, which were claimed by a Kurdish militant group.

That has hit tourism in a nation whose Aegean and Mediterranean beaches usually lure droves of European and Russian holidaymakers. Russians stopped coming after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane over Syria last November.

The number of foreign visitors to Turkey fell by 28 percent in April, the biggest drop in 17 years.

“Business hasn’t been very good anyway. We’re now expecting fast check-outs and we think it will get worse,” said Kerem Tataroglu, general manager of the Zurich Hotel, less than 300 meters from where Tuesday’s blast happened.

While attacks by Islamic State have tended to draw more attention in the West, Turkey is equally concerned by the rise in attacks by Kurdish militants who had previously concentrated for the most part on the southeast.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged an armed insurgency against the state since 1984, claimed responsibility for a May 12 car bomb attack in Istanbul that wounded seven people. In that attack, a parked car was also blown up as a bus carrying security force personnel passed by.

(Additional reporting by Murat Sezer, Ayla Jean Yackley, Ece Toksabay; Writing by Daren Butler and David Dolan; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Andrew Heavens)