Turkey’s Istanbul airport attackers ‘all from ex-USSR’

The three men who carried out Tuesday’s deadly attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk airport were all from parts of the former USSR, Turkish sources say.

One is said to be from Russia’s North Caucasus region and the others from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Turkey believes so-called Islamic State (IS) was behind the suicide gun and bomb attack that left 44 people dead and some 240 injured.

Police detained at least 13 suspects in Istanbul and more in Izmir on Thursday.

Family, friends and colleagues of victims gathered at the airport on Thursday for a memorial service as funerals continued.

One image on Turkish media purported to show the three men together at the airport moments before the attack, wearing dark jackets and carrying holdalls. Two are wearing caps, one is smiling.

An unnamed Turkish official confirmed for Reuters news agency the dead attackers’ countries of origin after Turkish media reports.

Some agencies named one of the men as Osman Vadinov, said to have crossed into Turkey from the IS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria in 2015.

Reports that he was a Chechen have been denied by an unnamed police source in the North Caucasus, Russia’s Interfax news agency reports.

The organiser of the attack has been named by Turkish media as Akhmed Chatayev, a Chechen believed to have acted as an IS recruiter, who is on a US counter-terror sanctions list. His fate was not immediately clear.

IS has long recruited members from mainly Muslim parts of the former USSR, with Russian President Vladimir Putin putting the overall number at between 5,000 and 7,000 in October.

However, data published by the Soufan Group security consultants in December suggests the numbers are lower: 2,400 from Russia and 500 apiece from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The government has made no official statement on nationalities yet and no-one has said they carried out the attack on Tuesday evening.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Wednesday that “our thoughts on those responsible for the attack lean towards Islamic State”. BBC