Turkish investigators pored over video
footage and witness statements on Wednesday after three suspected Islamic State
suicide bombers opened fire and blew themselves up in Istanbul's main airport,
killing 41 people and wounding 239.
The attack on Europe's third-busiest airport was
the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings this year in Turkey, part of the
U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State and struggling to contain spillover
from neighboring Syria's war.
President Tayyip Erdogan said the attack should serve as a
turning point in the global fight against terrorism, which he said had "no
regard for faith or values".
Five Saudis and two Iraqis were among the dead, a Turkish
official said. Citizens from China, Jordan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Iran and Ukraine
were also among the 13 foreigners killed.
One attacker opened fire in the departures hall with an
automatic rifle, sending passengers diving for cover and trying to flee, before
all three blew themselves up in or around the arrivals hall a floor below,
witnesses and officials said.
Video footage showed one of the attackers inside the terminal
building being shot, apparently by a police officer, before falling to the
ground as people scattered. The attacker then blew himself up around 20 seconds
later.
"It's a jigsaw puzzle ... The authorities are going through
CCTV footage, witness statements," a Turkish official said.
The Dogan news agency said autopsies on the three bombers, whose
torsos were ripped apart, had been completed and that they may have been
foreign nationals, without citing its sources.
Broken ceiling panels littered the kerb outside the arrivals
section of the international terminal. Plates of glass had shattered, exposing
the inside of the building, and electric cables dangled from the ceiling.
Cleanup crews swept up debris and armed police patrolled as flights resumed.
"This attack, targeting innocent people is a vile, planned
terrorist act," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters at the scene
in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
"There is initial evidence that each of the three suicide
bombers blew themselves up after opening fire," he said. The attackers had
come to the airport by taxi and preliminary findings pointed to Islamic State
responsibility.
Two U.S. counterterrorism officials familiar with the early
stages of investigations said Islamic State was at the top of the list of
suspects even though there was no evidence yet
No group had claimed
responsibility more than 12 hours after the attack, which began around 9:50
p.m. (1850 GMT) on Tuesday.
VICTIMS OF MANY NATIONALITIES
Istanbul's position bridging Europe and
Asia has made Ataturk airport, Turkey's largest, a major transit hub for
passengers across the world. The Istanbul governor's office said 109 of the 239
people hospitalized had since been discharged.
"There were little babies crying,
people shouting, broken glass and blood all over the floor. It was very
crowded, there was chaos. It was traumatic," said Diana Eltner, 29, a
Swiss psychologist who was traveling from Zurich to Vietnam but had been
diverted to Istanbul after she missed a connection.
Delayed travelers were sleeping on floors
at the airport, a Reuters witness said, as some passengers and airport staff
cried and hugged each other. Police in kevlar vests with automatic weapons
prowled the kerbside as a handful of travelers and Turkish Airlines crew
trickled in.
The national carrier said
it had canceled 340 flights although its departures resumed after 8:00 am (0500
GMT).
Paul Roos, 77, a South African tourist on
his way home, said he saw one of the attackers "randomly shooting" in
the departures hall from about 50 meters (55 yards) away.
"He was wearing all black. His face
was not masked ... We ducked behind a counter but I stood up and watched him.
Two explosions went off shortly after one another. By that time he had stopped
shooting," Roos told Reuters.
"He turned around and started coming
towards us. He was holding his gun inside his jacket. He looked around
anxiously to see if anyone was going to stop him and then went down the
escalator ... We heard some more gunfire and then another explosion, and then
it was over."
AIM TO MAXIMIZE FEAR
The attack bore similarities to a suicide
bombing by Islamic State militants at Brussels airport in March that killed 16
people. A coordinated attack also targeted a rush-hour metro train, killing a
further 16 people in the Belgian capital.
Islamic State militants also claimed gun
and bomb attacks that killed 129 people in Paris last November
"In Istanbul they used a combination
of the methods employed in Paris and Brussels. They planned a murder that would
maximize fear and loss of life," said Suleyman Ozeren, a terrorism expert
at the Ankara-based Global Policy and Strategy Institute.
Turkey needs to work harder on
"preventative intelligence" to stop militants being radicalized in
the first place, he said.
The two U.S. officials said the Istanbul
bombing was more typical of Islamic State than of Kurdish militant groups which
have also carried out recent attacks in Turkey, but usually strike at official
government targets.
Yildirim said it was significant that the
attack took place when Turkey was having successes in fighting terrorist groups
and mending ties with some of its international partners.
Turkey announced the restoration of
diplomatic ties with Israel on Monday after a six-year rupture and has been
trying to restore relations with Russia, a major backer of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad.
One of the U.S. officials said there had
been a "marked increase" in encrypted Islamic State propaganda and
communications on the dark web, which some American officials interpret as an
effort to direct or inspire more attacks outside its home turf to offset its
recent losses on the ground.
Both officials spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss the probe, which they said is being led by Turkish
officials with what they called intelligence support from the United States and
other NATO allies.
(Additional reporting by Trevor
Hunnicutt, Can Sezer, Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul, Ercan Gurses in Ankara, John
Walcott in Washington, Pavel Polityuk in Kiev, Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Sami
Aboudi in Dubai, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Nick Tattersall; editing
by Philippa Fletcher, Janet McBride)
Courtesy:
Reuters.com
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