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 Islamic State are carried out.
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A third one died in the parking lot, where he detonated himself as terrified travelers scattered in all directions.
The attack echoed the dual suicide bombings at the main airport in Brussels in March. Three of those detained were foreign nationals, state media reported.
Svante Cornell, Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, said the airport attack is an indication of how hard it will be for Turkey to clean up years of foreign policy failures.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim pinned the airport attack on the Islamic State group, which is battling an array of enemies in Iraq and Syria including Western powers and Russian Federation. “These people were innocent; they were children, women, elderly …”
“This is not Islamic. Taking one person’s life means going straight to hell”, he said. “No terrorist organization will come between what we are”. The reports showed that the attackers rented the flat three months ago by making a cash payment.
Interior Minister Efkan Ala told reporters late Wednesday there was an ongoing “serious and comprehensive investigation” into who was behind the attack. “But nothing is for certain”.
“They returned and came back with long-range rifles they took out from their suitcases, and passed the security control by opening fire randomly at people”, he said. ISIS claimed responsibility for that massacre, which left 89 people dead.
Asked about the possible involvement of a Russian in the attacks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had no information on the issue.
Akhmed Chatayev is the man who directed the three suicide bombers in the attacks that killed 43 people Tuesday, said Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Citizens from China, Jordan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Iran and Ukraine were also among the 13 foreigners killed.
In 2011 he was detained by Bulgarian police at the country’s border with Turkey as Russian Federation wanted him for “participation in an armed group and for the recruitment of persons for terrorism and for financing terrorism”, a Bulgarian judge told Bulgarian national radio on Friday. “The authorities are going through CCTV footage and witness statements”, a Turkish official said.
Of the hundreds wounded, 80 are still hospitalized, Istanbul officials said.
The assailants have not been identified, but there is a “strong suggestion that they are foreign”, a senior Turkish government source told CNN.
Experts say Turkey is especially vulnerable because various terrorists operate there. The 35-year-old one-armed militant, who fought in Chechnya against Russian forces and their local allies in the early 2000s before fleeing to the West, was put on the USA list of suspected terrorists in 2015. Turkey allows coalition planes to fly raids from its territory.
Authorities are under pressure to convince visitors that Turkey is still safe, as the vital tourism industry has taken a heavy hit from a string of deadly attacks in the past year. However, TAK did claim a bombing that killed one person at Sabiha Gokcen Airport, Istanbul’s other airport, late a year ago. The violence has also rattled Turkey’s tourism industry, a key sector of the national economy. A section where one of the bombs went off was cordoned off by boards with advertisements on them.
People wait for passengers at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport in Turkey on June 29, 2016.
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Those detained in the raids Thursday included three foreign nationals, according to state media.
