Thirteen suspects affiliated with Islamic State, including three foreigners, were remanded to custody over the terrorist attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk worldwide airport, DHA news agency reported Sunday.
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Seventeen people including 11 Russians have been charged over the Istanbul airport attack, Dogan news agency reported on Tuesday, bringing to 30 the total number charged over the suicide assault.
Dogan news agency reports the two suspects hail from the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan and identified them by their initials F. M.
Officials believe the ISIS group was behind the attack, the worst in a series to hit Turkey’s biggest city this year.
On June 28 the terrorists opened fire at people in the Istanbul Ataturk Airport, and then blew themselves up. A third militant detonated his explosives at the entrance.
It is important to state that two of the suspects were Russian citizens, and one was a citizen of Azerbaijan.
Authorities believe the attackers were a Russian, an Uzbek and a Kyrgyz national.
It is known that ISIS has some 4700 fighters from the former Soviet Republics, many from Chechnya (around 2,200 according to one recent Russian estimate) and other Caucasus provinces.
Chatayev allegedly organised two deadly bombings this year in the heart of the city’s Sultanahmet tourist district and the busy Istiklal shopping street, the Hurriyet newspaper said.
“When the police caught us they said terrorists had stayed there previously, but we didn’t know”.
“In case of anything unusual, they will be the first ones to retaliate. Maybe he came and stayed but I don’t know him”, he said.
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Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Monday that police were on high alert and had boosted their presence at Istanbul’s airports and metro and railway stations. It also faces a separate security threat from a Kurdish insurgency in its largely Kurdish southeast.
