Turkish authorities detain 3 more over airport attack

He and two others in the vehicle said they were heading to Norway to go fishing and meet friends. A third militant detonated his explosives at the entrance. Dozens from the 230 people initially reported wounded are still hospitalized.

Turkish officials on Thursday did not offer any details about how they determined the identifications of the attackers. Forensics teams had earlier struggled to identify the bombers from their limited remains. Interior Minister Efkan Ala said the dead included 19 foreigners. The private Dogan news agency said the Russian attacker had entered the country one month ago and left his passport in a house the men had rented in Istanbul’s Fatih neighborhood.

The Russian interior ministry said it was checking information about Vadinov.

A spokesman for Kyrgyzstan’s state security service said it was investigating, while the Uzbek security service had no immediate comment.

IS, which has used Turkey to establish itself in neighbouring Syria and Iraq, has repeatedly threatened Turkey in its propaganda, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member has blamed IS for several major bombings in the past year in both Ankara and Istanbul. It now seems that some of those foreign fighters may have targeted Turkey and its biggest airport.

Separately, security forces on Wednesday detained four Turkish citizens at the Oncupinar border gate in southeast Turkey on suspicion of membership in a terrorist group, the local governor’s office said in a statement.

Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s Security Council, sent a telegram to his Turkish counterpart calling for cooperation in fighting terrorism after the bombing, Russian news agencies reported. CNN Turk said they were accused of providing logistical support for the bombings.

“They returned and came back with long-range rifles they took out from their suitcases, and passed the security control by opening fire randomly at people”, he said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, Turkish authorities last night said they were looking at a suspect Akhmed Chatayev as the organiser of the assault.

Chatayev is apparently well-known among intelligence officials as an ISIS leader. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Turkish officials say they believe it was the work of the Islamic State group, which is based in neighboring Syria and Iraq and has operatives in Turkey.

Islamic State has established a self-declared caliphate and declared war on all non-Muslims and all Muslims who do not accept its ultra-hardline version of Sunni Islam. Erdogan was referring to Syrian Kurdish militia, which Ankara accuses of being a terror organization due to their affiliation with Turkey’s Kurdish rebels, and to the IS group by its Arabic name. A Chechen extremist masterminded the triple suicide bombing at Istanbul’s busiest airport that killed dozens, a USA congressman has said.

Family members, colleagues and friends of the victims of Tuesday blasts gather for a memorial ceremony at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, Thursday, June 30, 2016. If the group did indeed send those fighters to Istanbul, then that could mean more trouble for Western counterterrorism officials.