ISTANBUL ATTACK
Suicide blasts kill dozens
Three attackers with suicide vests and guns killed scores of people Tuesday at the entrance to Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport, the latest in a wave of violent attacks as the country battles Islamist terrorists and Kurdish separatists.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said 36 were dead and Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said 147 were wounded. Another senior government official told The Associated Press the death toll could climb much higher.
Yildirim said the investigation indicated the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was behind the attack. “What is noteworthy is that this attack came at a time when our country is putting up a merciless fight against separatist terrorism and recording significant success.”
Turkish officials later said three terror- ists took part in the attack near the security checkpoints at the entrance to the airport’s arrivals hall. It is believed the terrorists began shooting at people and then blew themselves up as police returned fire.
Hundreds of passengers flooded out of the busy airport, which serves as a connecting point for many international flights. Eyewitnesses recounted pools of blood and several loud bangs. Some passengers hid under counters and in a basement cafeteria as chaos unfurled over their heads.
“First I heard the gunfire, then the explosions — two of them,” said Koray Arslan, who was at the nearby domestic terminal. “They were very powerful. I could feel the tremors under my feet.”
The majority of the casualties were Turkish citizens, “but there are foreign nationals” both killed and wounded, a Turkish official said.
The attack was “yet another reminder, as if any was needed, that Turkey faces the perfect storm of terrorist threats,” Anthony Skinner, a director with U.K.-based forecasting company Verisk Maplecroft, said.
The spread of violence in Turkey is scaring off tourists. Last month saw the biggest slump in visitor numbers on record.
Turkey has been hit by spillover from the civil war in neighbouring Syria, where Islamic State controls territory along the Turkish border, and the army is also fighting an escalating war with separatist Kurdish rebels.
Turkey is a member of the U.S.-led coalition against the group. Last July, Turkey launched airstrikes against Islamic State targets that killed upward of 35 terrorists. In January an Islamic State suicide bomber killed 12 people when he detonated himself in Istanbul. In March, another suicide bomber killed four people, again in Istanbul.
If the group was behind Tuesday’s attack, “this would represent a significant escalation by the Islamic State toward Turkey,” said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The attack would likely draw Turkey further into a conflict with the jihadist group.
“This is a symbolic attack against the heart of Turkey,” he said.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement the Istanbul airport attack was an effort to hurt Turkey’s image. “For the terrorist organizations, there’s no difference between Istanbul and London, Ankara and Berlin, Izmir and Chicago, Antalya and Rome,” he said.
The attack is the latest to target airports and the aviation industry in the Middle East and Europe, coming three months after suicide bombers struck Brussels Airport. In March, Islamic State suicide bombers killed 32 people at Brussels Airport and a metro station.
Tuesday’s attack serves as reminder of the vulnerability of airport lobbies and other public places where large numbers of people congregate, said Hans Weber, an aviation consultant in San Diego.
“The probability of copycat attacks goes way up high after one of those attacks,” said Weber, who advised the United States federal government on airport security issues following the Sept. 11 attacks. “From a terrorist perspective, Brussels was a success. You can see how they would be motivated to copy that.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter that Canada “strongly condemns tonight’s deadly attack in Turkey.”
Trudeau added that his “thoughts and prayers” are with the victims as “we stand with our allies against terrorism.”
THE PROBABILITY OF COPYCAT ATTACKS GOES WAY UP HIGH AFTER ONE OF THOSE ATTACKS.