Finding the passport of the Russian attacker in a cell house in Istanbul’s Fatih district, police said he was of Dagestani origin and entered Turkey with a false passport around one month ago.
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A news organization in Turkey identified Ahmed Chatayev as the organizer of the terrorist attack, as did United States officials, according to CNN.
Officials said Chatayev’s whereabouts are unclear but he has been on a USA list of suspected terrorists since 2015 as an influential recruiter of Russian-speaking ISIS militants, operating in Russia’s Muslim North Caucasus region, Chechnya. “He’s. probably the No. 1 enemy in the Northern Caucasus region of Russia”, US Rep. Michael McCaul tells CNN. McCaul says Chatayev’s whereabouts are unclear but he is known to have served as a top lieutenant in the Islamic State’s war ministry.
This picture taken on June 30, 2016 shows cloves left by airport employees next to killed airport employees pictures at Ataturk airport global terminal in Istanbul on June 30, 2016 two days after the triple suicide bombing and gun attack occurred at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport.
The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) – a radical splinter group of the better-known Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) – claimed the suicide bomb attack in Ankara, saying that it was in response to security operations in the southeast.
Counter-extremism police raided the Basaksehir district in Turkey’s largest city, meaning that they have now arrested a total of 24 people following the airport attack, broadcaster Haberturk said.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack but the Turkish leadership has held ISIS responsible for the attack.
“They have no connection to Islam. Their place is in hell”, he said.
CCTV shows those believed to be the attackers from Istanbul’s Ataturk airport.
“These people were innocent; they were children, women, elderly, “. However, Russian law enforcement agencies have denied reports that one of the participants of the terror attack was Russian. Turkish and Swedish media have also identified Chatayev as the organiser. Another nine people, who were allegedly in direct contact with ISIS militants, were also arrested in the coastal city of Izmir in another series of raids.
Turkey’s interior minister said the explosives used were a mix of RDX, TNT and PETN that were “manufactured”, which chemist and explosives expert at University of Rhode Island, Jimmie Oxley, described as being military-grade, raising the question of how the attackers obtained the bombs.
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One of the attackers headed to the airport’s parking garage, the other headed to global arrival Gate A, and the third one headed to the worldwide departures terminal, sources said.
