Turkey said Wednesday it had arrested five suspects over a deadly suicide bombing carried out by an Islamic State jihadi that killed 10 German tourists in the historic center of Istanbul.
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Amateur footage was captured in the Sultanahmet tourist area of police rushing in to help the wounded – with one police vehicle overturning on the way there.
But it has faced a series of deadly attacks by the radical Sunni militant group over the past six months, including a suicide bombing in the border town of Suruc last July and a double bombing in Ankara in October which killed 100 people, the worst attack of its kind on Turkish soil.
The suspect was detained late on Tuesday, Ala said during a news conference with his German counterpart.
Turkey has detained 68 suspected members of the so-called Islamic State jihadist group in raids across the country, according to state media.
In a harrowing account, Şatiroğlu said she saw the man preparing to launch the attack after blending into a group of 33 German citizens visiting the Theodosius obelisk.
But he said Russia’s entry into the Syrian war was a complicating factor.
Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala confirmed Fadli was registered and fingerprinted as a Syrian refugee, but stated “he was not on the wanted individuals list, and neither is he on the target individuals list sent to us by other countries”.
The three Russian citizens reportedly detained by the Turkish police over ties with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) were indeed linked with global terrorism, a source in one of Russia’s security agencies said.
The attack, which also wounded 15 other people, including Germans, a Norwegian man and a Peruvian woman, was the latest in a string of attacks by Islamic extremists targeting Westerners. He said Germany stood resolutely by Turkey’s side in the fight against terrorism.
It is unclear what connections, if any, Fadli has with the three Russians and the others arrested Wednesday.
The attack in Diyarbakir comes on the heels of the suicide bombing Tuesday in Istanbul.
“It seems to make it less likely this was anything but a centrally commanded operation by the Islamic State”, he said. “Germany and Turkey are becoming even closer”, he said.
But Turkish officials said it was hard to prevent every attack. Some IS fighters of Russian origin are believed to have left IS to settle in Turkey, families say.
The nationalities of the two others killed in the blast were not immediately released, but both were foreigners.
The Anadolu Agency report said the terrorists detonated a auto laden with explosives and simultaneously launched an attack on the district office with gunfire.
In total there are 11 injured people, most of whom are Germans.
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Turkish newspapers printed words of condolence in German.
