The detainees include 15 foreigners, one of them a Russian citizen, Efe news said citing local media reports.
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The alleged organizer of the Istanbul airport massacre is a well known militant who served as a top lieutenant in ISIS’ war ministry, a USA official said.
Unless all governments and the entire mankind join forces in the fight against terrorism, much worse things than what we fear to imagine today will come true. And if we Turks had any delusion of seeing IS somehow less risky than the PKK, then we must have been woken by the ferocious attack on the Ataturk airport. The airport was closed overnight for a few hours, with flights diverted to Ankara and other cities.
It was expected that a minute’s silence would be held at Euro 2016 for victims of the attack, but the governing body have confirmed that they will not be doing this at the quarter-final stage.
Ege Seckin, an analyst at IHS Country risk, said the attack was “most likely conducted by the Islamic State to undermine the Turkish economy by attacking the airport ahead of the summer months, when tourism peaks”. The terror group now expanding its reach into Southeast Asia.
The office of the Prime Minister officially declared Wednesday a national day of mourning for the victims of the attack.
Details are beginning to emerge of how the attackers arrived at Turkey’s busiest airport by taxi before indiscriminately firing at passengers with automatic rifles and detonating suicide bombs.
The four-year-old Rayyan Mohammed was one of more than 200 people injured in the attacks.
The report said the suspects were in contact with ISIS 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.
One simple reason for this latest IS attack might be that Turkey and IS have in fact been at war since July 2015, when the Turkish government allowed the United States to use its Incirlik Air Base in southeastern Turkey to hit IS.
Last year, the U.S. Treasury added Chayatev to its list of terrorists, saying he was planing attacks against U.S. and Turkish facilities. The men purportedly brought suicide vests and bombs with them, which were used in the Ataturk attack.
One man who owns a real estate agency said one of the men in the picture had lived in his apartment. Two of the men targeted the global terminal building, and the third one gunned down people at the parking lot.
A second suspected attacker took advantage of the chaos, went upstairs, then blew himself up.
As of now, no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
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A key partner in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group, Turkey also faces security threats from the Kurdish rebels who are demanding greater autonomy in Turkey’s southeast region and from ultra-left radicals.
