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Istanbul bombers from Russia and central Asia
Three foreign nationals – a Russian, an Uzbek and a Kyrgyz – carried out the shooting and triple suicide bombing at Atatürk airport in Istanbul, Turkish officials have said, but questions remain over security shortcomings that allowed the attackers to breach several control points and kill 43 people.Turkish authorities, including the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, believe Isis was responsible for the attack on Europe’s third-busiest airport on Tuesday evening, the deadliest in a string of killings and explosions that have shaken the country this year. There has been no claim of responsibility. Turkish police have identified one of the attackers as Osman Vadinov, a Chechen from Dagestan who reportedly entered Turkey on his Russian passport about a month ago. Police said he had entered Turkey from Raqqa, the Isis stronghold in Syria, at least once before in 2015 and is suspected to have had links to jihadi cells inside Turkey. The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper claimed that the man suspected of being the organiser of the attack was an Isis commander of Chechen origin called Akhmed Chatayev, described by the US Treasury Department as “the commander of the Yarmouk Battalion, a Chechen faction of [Isis].” Chatayev is said to be responsible for the recruiting and training of Russian-speaking Isis militants and was added to the US government’s list of specially designated global terrorists in 2015. He is wanted by the Russian government. Posted by: Steve White 2016-07-01 |
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