More arrests as hunt for Istanbul attacker continues
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish police carried out a dawn raid in a town on the edge of Istanbul on Thursday and detained suspects thought to be linked to the nightclub attack that killed 39 people early on New Year’s Day.
Counter-terrorism police, gendarmes and special forces swooped on a housing complex in Selimpasa, a coastal town just to the west of Istanbul, after receiving intelligence that individuals who might have helped the gunman were there, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
The gunman, who is still at large, shot his way into Istanbul’s exclusive Reina nightclub early on Sunday and opened fire with an automatic rifle, throwing stun grenades to allow himself to reload and shoot the wounded.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.
Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak said on Thursday that the attacker was believed to be an ethnic Uighur from central Asia. Uighurs were among those detained Thursday in Selimpasa.
The Uighurs are a largely Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority in far-western China, with significant diaspora communities across central Asia and Turkey.
In an interview with the broadcaster A Haber, Kaynak said he could not rule out the possibility of the attacker fleeing abroad, but that operations within Turkey were more likely to achieve a result.
The gunman appeared to have been well-versed in guerrilla warfare and might have trained in Syria, according to a security source and newspaper reports.
It was not immediately clear how many people were detained on Thursday, but at least 36 people have been held since the attack, according to earlier media reports.
Police in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir on Wednesday detained what they said were 20 suspected ISIS members thought to be of Central Asian and North African origin. Fake passports, mobile phones and equipment that included night-vision goggles and a GPS device were seized.
Turkey’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that the identity of the gunman had been established, but did not give further details. Authorities have not named the suspect.
The nightclub attack in Istanbul’s upscale Ortakoy district on the shore of the Bosphorus followed a failed coup in July and a series of attacks by radical Islamist and Kurdish gunmen that have shaken NATO member Turkey over the past year.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the attack on the club, popular with local celebrities and wealthy foreigners, was being exploited to try to divide the overwhelmingly Muslim nation.
Among those killed in the attack were Turks and foreigners, including a young woman from Israel.