ISTANBUL: The suicide attackers who launched the deadly Istanbul airport assault were planning to take dozens of passengers hostage, Turkish media reported Friday, as CCTV of the bombers’ faces emerged.
Turkish officials have blamed Daesh for Tuesday night’s gun and bomb spree at Ataturk airport, which left 44 people dead including 19 foreigners. “They say they are doing this in the name of Islam,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on a visit to Istanbul.
“That has nothing to do with Islam. Their place is in hell.”
Twenty-four people have been detained in Istanbul in a string of raids over the attack over the past two days, including 15 foreigners.
Nine other suspected terrorists were rounded up in the western port city of Izmir, but officials declined to confirm a link with the bloodshed in Istanbul.
Officials say the three men who carried out the deadly attack were a Russian, an Uzbek and a Kyrgyz national. Turkish media identified the strike’s organizer as Akhmet Chatayev, the Chechen leader of a Daesh cell in Istanbul who reportedly found accommodation for the bombers.
Chatayev allegedly organized two deadly bombings this year in the heart of the city’s Sultanahmet tourist district and the busy Istiklal shopping street, the Hurriyet newspaper said.
Michael McCaul, chairman of the US House Committee on Homeland Security, described Chatayev as “probably the number one enemy in the Northern Caucasus region of Russia.”
“He’s traveled to Syria on many occasions and became one of the top lieutenants for the minister of war for Daesh operations,” McCaul told CNN.
The pro-government Sabah newspaper reported that the attackers scouted the scene and planned to take dozens of passengers hostage inside before carrying out a massacre.
But they began the assault early after attracting suspicion, Sabah said.
CCTV images released by police show the three alleged attackers arriving, wearing dark coats over their suicide vests — clothing that was much too heavy for a hot summer night.
More images show a plainclothes police officer confronting one of the men by an elevator and asking to see his identification. The attacker pulls out a gun and shoots him.
The Hurriyet newspaper reported that the bombers had rented a flat in Istanbul’s Fatih district, home to many Syrians and other Arabs, and paid 24,000 Turkish lira ($8,300, 7,500 euros) in advance for a year’s rent.
The police raided the apartment after the attack, according to an upstairs neighbor, who said the men kept the curtains closed.
She never saw the attackers, but she heard them, and complained to neighborhood officials about a strange smell. “A very weird, chemical smell,” she said. “Police came after the bombing... I lived on top of the bomb.”
Hurriyet also quoted a local plumber, identified only by his initials E.S., who says one of the attackers came to his shop to ask if he could fix their tap.
“He spoke in broken Turkish. He took me home,” the plumber said.
“I changed the tap. I saw three people inside. They looked like bandits — one of them always stood by me.”
Istanbul airport bombers ‘planned hostage-taking’
Istanbul airport bombers ‘planned hostage-taking’
