Turkey said Wednesday it had arrested a total of five suspects over a deadly suicide bombing carried out by an Islamic State (IS) jihadist that killed 10 German tourists in the historic centre of Istanbul. Turkish officials have said he was born in 1988.
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The Hurriyet daily said Turkey’s spy agency had twice issued warnings over the risk of a suicide attack in Istanbul. “I thought it was unusual and looked around”, she said.
The Turkish government quickly attributed the attack to ISIS, adding that a Syrian man who recently crossed the border to Turkey was behind the deadly blast.
The Russian foreign ministry confirmed three of those detained were Russian nationals, but it was not immediately clear whether there was any connection to the Istanbul attack, for which there has been no claim of responsibility.
Fadli, a former furniture shop manager, initially fought with Free Syrian Army soldiers against Syrian president Bashir al-Assad but switched his support to ISIS.
In the southern resort city of Antalya, security forces arrested three Russians for alleged links to Islamic State, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned on Tuesday the alleged terrorist attack in Istanbul that killed more than 10 people, including German citizens.
Turkey has rounded up hundreds of suspected Islamic State members in its efforts to crack down on the group’s domestic networks.
“This person entered Turkey as an ordinary migrant”.
Addressing a joint press conference with his German counterpart Thomas de Maiziere in Istanbul, Ala said: “Turkey is seriously inspecting the attack and its perpetrators”.
Davutoglu said he had spoken by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to offer condolences and vowed Turkey’s fight against Islamic State, at home and as part of the US-led coalition, would continue.
The attack late Wednesday targeted the police station in the town of Cinar, in the mostly-Kurdish Diyarbakir province, and police lodgings at the compound, the Diyarbakir governor’s office said. It also sent a tanker aircraft and a frigate to help protect a French aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean.
Germany already was helping supply and train Kurdish forces fighting IS in northern Iraq but has not taken a direct combat role.
The victims of Tuesday’s blast came from several different parts of Germany and included two couples.
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Eight Germans were among the dead and nine others were wounded, some seriously, German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin.
