Three of those arrested were foreign nationals, but their nationalities were not identified.
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Ocal, who was married and an employee at Ataturk Airport had sustained serious wounds to the head, the agency said.
Turkish authorities and USA officials believe Islamic State was responsible for Tuesday night’s gun and bomb attack on Europe’s third-busiest airport, the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings in Turkey this year.
Other fatalities included two Iraqis, one Tunisian, one Chinese, one Iranian, one Ukrainian, one Jordanian and one person from Uzbekistan, a Turkish official said. Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala said on June 30 that Turkish police have been able to identify the terrorists who carried out the bombing on June 28.
Authorities halted the takeoff of scheduled flights from the airport and passengers were transferred to hotels, a Turkish Airlines official said.
“New demands directed at Turkey, that would encourage the terrorists”, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday. “We have an agreement with Turkey, we’re working on the benchmarks, and that will continue”, Koenders said.
The three attackers targeting Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport two days ago have been idenftied on Thursday as Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Russian nationals, Turkish meida said.
The police raided the apartment after the attack, according to an upstairs neighbour, who said the bombers kept the curtains closed.
The president also emphasized that Turkey is determined to fight the terrorists. It also underscores the fact that the country is now located at the cross-roads of ISIS global and regional terrorist strategies.
“They say they are doing this in the name of Islam”, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on a visit to Istanbul.
The suicide attackers who launched the deadly Istanbul airport assault were planning to take dozens of passengers hostage, Turkish media reported Friday, as CCTV of the bombers’ faces emerged.
“There was no immediate claim of responsibility by the militant group, which used Turkey as a crossing point to establish itself in neighboring Syria and Iraq”, the wire service writes. It showed a special forces police team entering a building carrying what appeared to be a steel shield to protect from possible counterattack during the raid.
Turkey, which is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, is also fighting Kurdish militants in its largely Kurdish southeast.
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The report said the suspects were in contact with IS militants in Syria and were engaged in “activities that were in line with the organization’s aims and interests”, including providing financial resources, recruits and logistical support. “It is likely that at least one of them is a foreigner, but the investigation is still underway”, the source said, declining to be named because details of the investigation have not yet been released.
