Dozens killed in Istanbul attack

TURKEY - It was supposed to be a celebration welcoming in a new start, after a trying, bloody year in Turkey.

But a New Year’s bash in an upscale club in Istanbul’s Besiktas municipality turned into yet another bloodbath, with at least 39 revelers killed and almost 70 people hospitalized after an unknown attacker entered the club and started shooting. “We were having fun, at first we thought it was a fight then there was a lot of gunfire,” eyewitness Yunis Turk told CNN after police secured the Reina nightclub in the neighborhood of Ortakoy. “After the gunfire everyone started to run toward the terrace. We ran as well. There was someone next to me who was shot and fell on the floor. We ran away and hid under the sofas.” Some people jumped into the Bosporus strait, he said, a testament to the panic that engulfed the nightspot. Temperatures were near freezing in Istanbul and yet people were willing to leap into the frigid waters to escape. “For ten minutes there was gunfire and then for another five minutes they were throwing bombs, fired a bit more, then left,” Turk recalled.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told CNN sister network CNN Turk that the attacker is a lone assailant and that the authorities “are trying hard” to identify and apprehend the person in order to investigate any ties to terror groups. He said that security forces are analyzing CCTV footage. “I hope we will shortly identify the attacker and find who is behind it,” he said. Despite no group yet claiming responsibility, Turkish authorities quickly characterized the attack as the work of terrorists. “We are face to face with a terror attack,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters Sunday morning.

(CNN)