As Turkey flew flags at half-staff to observe a day of mourning Wednesday, questions remained on who was behind the attack.
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Details are emerging of how the attackers arrived at Turkey’s busiest airport by taxi before indiscriminately firing at passengers with automatic rifles and detonating suicide bombs.
ISIS has struck Turkey before but has rarely claimed responsibility for any attacks on the country.
In this Thursday, June 30, 2016 photo, family members, colleagues and friends of the victims of Tuesday blasts gather for a memorial ceremony at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul. They were joined by the Albanian prime minister.
This was the fourth major terror attack this year in Turkey.
The U.N. Security Council condemned the attack, saying that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable and are “one of the most serious threats to worldwide peace and security”. “They have been let loose against us by the forces who hold their leashes”.
He said: “The bombs that explode in our country today will tomorrow explode in the hands of those who sent them”.
A Turkish official says two explosions have rocked Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, wounding multiple people.
In Paris, the Eiffel Tower was illuminated in the red-and-white colors of the Turkish flag to honor the victims in Istanbul.
The suspected suicide bombers were Russian, Uzbek and Kyrgyz nationals, a Turkish government official said on Thursday.
Perhaps not by chance, what was merely the latest in a series of Islamic State attacks inside Turkey came just as its impulsive and increasingly autocratic president was moving to fix his regime’s threadbare foreign relations.
Turkey has been plunged into mourning over the carnage at Ataturk airport, the deadliest of several attacks to strike Turkey’s biggest city this year.
Shraim was a native of the West Bank town of Qalqilyeh.
The death toll from the attack has now risen to 43. Of those who were wounded, 94 remained in hospital, the Istanbul Governor’s office reported.
Turkey has pointed the finger at Islamic State for a triple suicide bombing and gun attack that killed 41 people at Istanbul’s main airport, with President Tayyip Erdogan calling it a turning point in the global fight against terrorism. While some were carried out Kurdish militants in response to a worsening civil conflict between the Turkish government and the country’s Kurdish minority, others were carried out by ISIS, which controls large portions of Syria and Iraq. The Turkish authorities presume that ISIS organized the attack, stating that all evidence points to the terrorist organization.
“New demands directed at Turkey, that would encourage the terrorists”, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday. “We can not make any changes in our anti-terror laws”.
“Nothing will change”, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
MANSUR AKCAY, Istanbul Resident (through translator): I don’t think they do enough.
More than 230 people were injured in the attack. “AKP leaders had refused to classify I.S.as a terrorist organization, they are responsible for this massacre”, Boke accused. The United Nations has said he directly commands 130 militants.
ISIS has a reason to detest Turkey.
The Tunisian government said he was among dozens killed in Tuesday’s suicide bombing, blamed on IS.
Counterterrorism units raided 16 addresses in Istanbul and launched operations in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, according to Turkish officials and the state-run Anadolu news agency.
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Turkish authorities have said they believe Islamic State was behind the airport attack.
