Abdulvakhid Edelgireyev survived for years hiding in the Chechen mountains, launching attacks on Russian security forces and evading capture. He survived the battlefields of Syria, and those of east Ukraine. But in November his life came to an abrupt end in a flurry of bullets: he was shot dead in broad daylight in Istanbul as he embarked on a shopping trip with his three-year-old niece.
Edelgireyev and his niece walked out of their apartment block in Kayasehir, a far-flung suburb of nondescript new towers, shortly before 2pm on 1 November. The 32-year-old Chechen sat the girl in the passenger seat of his car, and was about to start the engine when a white car rammed into them from behind, closing him in. Pushing his niece on to the floor under the seat, Edelgireyev scrambled out and started running. One of the assassins gave chase, firing at him, and he crumpled to the ground. When paramedics arrived a few minutes later he was already dead, in a pool of blood. He had been shot five times.
The dead man’s biography, as set out by family and associates, paints a picture of a key figure in the Caucasus Emirate, the umbrella group of Chechen and other fighters in Russia’s North Caucasus that has resorted to terrorist methods, including suicide attacks on Moscow’s metro and Domodedovo airport. Edelgireyev’s experiences during his year in Syria also revealed how the Chechen resistance fight has slowly grown links to Islamic State , and the infighting and turmoil among the foreign fighters in Syria.
The murder is the latest in a pattern of audacious hits on key Chechen figures in the Turkish city over recent years. Personal enemies of Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, have been killed in Moscow, Vienna and Dubai; there are suspicions members of Kadyrov’s militias may have been involved. But Turkish prosecutors suspect the Istanbul murders may have the hallmarks of more centralised Russian hits.
Chechnya’s strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov (centre). Photograph: Musa Sadulayev/AP
There has been no official comment on the murders. However, in 2003 Vladimir Putin passed a law allowing the FSB, Russia’s security service, to conduct operations abroad, and now Russia and Turkey have fallen out dramatically over the downing of an Su-24 warplane by the Turkish air force in November, there are fears among potential targets in Turkey that the campaign could be stepped up.
In one 2009 murder, the weapon used was the Groza, a pistol developed for Russia’s special forces for use in assassinations – and rarely found on the open market. In the murders of three Chechens outside an Istanbul teahouse in 2011, Turkish authorities believed nine people were involved, including two alleged Russian agents who fled, leaving fake passports behind.
The only man to be arrested for any of the killings is a shadowy figure who goes by the nickname “the Zone”. Believed to be Chechen, the Zone was apprehended trying to enter Istanbul on a fake Georgian passport in the name of Temur Makhauri in 2012. He is currently on trial in Istanbul for his alleged role in a number of the previous murders; the key evidence is secretly taped video of the Zone meeting with a man claimed to be an FSB agent and discussing the murders of Chechens. The prosecution is calling for a life sentence.
The mosques and minarets of Istanbul, where several thousand Chechens fled from conflict. Photograph: www.corbis.com/AdamWoolfitt
Several thousand Chechens live in Istanbul, where there were once three refugee camps for Chechens. But as well as civilians, the Turkish city has become something of a base for Chechen fighters and their families. For years, the children and wives of insurgents lived in the city, and injured fighters would travel there for treatment.
All Istanbul’s Chechens involved in the Caucasus Emirate now live in fear of attack. One who recently left Istanbul for Ukraine said he frequently changed his sim cards and always carried a pistol when in Turkey: he might not be able to escape death but perhaps he would at least get a shot off at his attackers. The Guardian also tracked down several Chechens making very cautious movements near a petrol station in a distant suburb of Istanbul, where the men took turns to act as lookouts. “We are required to take many precautions, unfortunately,” said one of the men, who wished to remain anonymous.
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In the days before he was killed, Edelgireyev had not noticed anyone following him, and was not taking any serious precautions, according to his family. But the well-built Chechen, with short hair and a wispy ginger beard, was a key figure in the Chechen insurgency’s diaspora, associates said.
‘To start with, Abdulvakhid was not a fighter’
Edelgireyev was born in 1983 to Chechen parents in Russia’s Volgograd region. He finished school and planned to study law at university, but when Vladimir Putin launched the second Chechen war in 2000, the family moved back to Chechnya. Three of his brothers joined the insurgency, carrying out attacks on Russian forces.
“To start with, Abdulvakhid was not a fighter, but he was abducted so many times by the security forces who wanted information on his brothers, that he eventually decided he would be better off going to the forest himself,” said his father, 71-year-old Alu Edelgireyev, over tea at his Istanbul home, just two blocks from where his son was murdered.
Alu Edelgireyev, the father of slain Abdulvakhid Edelgireyev. Photograph: Shaun Walker for the Guardian
Over time, Edelgireyev became close to Doku Umarov, the self-styled emir of the Caucasus Emirate, a group containing rebranded Chechen independence fighters who now sought to proclaim a state of Islam across the North Caucasus. In 2009, he injured his leg in a trap, and Umarov told him he should leave the mountains and get treatment. Like many Chechen fighters before him, he went to Turkey.
Edelgireyev’s three brothers were killed in shootouts with Russian forces between 2008 and 2010, a period when local security forces loyal to pro-Kremlin leader Kadyrov used violent tactics to crush the insurgency, killing many fighters and promising to burn down the homes of family members who did not give up information.
Local security forces tortured Edelgireyev’s father for information about his sons’ whereabouts, he said. “They came for me all the time,” he said, “asking where my sons were. They beat me, and tortured me with electric shocks. They attached wires to my fingers and feet and wound up this machine with a handle, like from an old film.” In the end, a relative paid police 200,000 roubles (then about £4,000) as a bribe to release the old man, who left Chechnya, and eventually moved to Istanbul to join his son in 2010.
By this time, Edelgireyev had undergone two operations on his injured leg in Istanbul and was seen as a key representative of the Caucasus Emirate group in the city. He was helping to channel money and provisions back to the Caucasus, one source said.
A screengrab from a 2013 video showing Doku Umarov, the leader of the Caucasus Emirate terror group and once one of Russia’s most wanted men. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
By 2012, he was ready to fight again, but conditions in Chechnya had become almost impossible. The Chechen source now living in Ukraine explained how things got progressively harder from 2004, when mobile phones began to be widespread in Chechnya.
“Before, we would go to the villages, stock up and spend the night, and then go back to the forest, but that’s impossible now. Everyone has a mobile phone; the minute you show yourself you’re dead.”
Until a few years ago, people ran supply routes from Istanbul through Georgia and over the mountains into Chechnya; the wives of fighters would also travel this way for annual meetings with their husbands. But since 2012, Georgia has introduced tougher border controls, putting many Chechens on a banned list so they cannot enter the country in the first place. Food that reaches the fighters has often been poisoned by security services or their informants; it is believed that this is what killed their “emir”, Umarov, last year.
Faced with the choice of almost certain death in Chechnya, or a new, exciting Islamic war in Syria, Edelgireyev chose the latter. The source in Ukraine said that until a year ago, recruiters for Isis and other rebel groups would solicit Chechens in Istanbul quite openly, although they have now moved more underground. Russian security services have estimated there are at least 2,000 people of Russian origin fighting in Syria, mainly from the North Caucasus.
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‘Our struggle was always about Russia’
Edelgireyev left Istanbul in 2013 to fight with Caucasus Emirate fighters who had moved to Syria. However, there was an acrimonious split when Omar al-Shishani, a Georgian-born Chechen who had previously served in the US-trained Georgian army, decided to merge the group with Isis.
Edelgireyev knew Shishani, now considered one of the leading Isis commanders, well: their wives were sisters. But he stayed with the remnants of the Caucasus group that did not join Isis, instead pledging themselves to Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaida-linked group in Syria.
“Our struggle was always about Russia, he wasn’t interested in Isis,” said his father. Edelgireyev returned to Istanbul a year ago, disillusioned with the “chaos” in Syria.
In recent months, some of the remaining mid-level Caucasus Emirate commanders still active in Chechnya and the other mountainous republics of southern Russia have pledged their allegiance to Isis, causing a split in the movement. A source in Istanbul linked to the insurgency said: “The fight in Syria and the seeping of Islamic State ideology back to the Caucasus has harmed our image a lot. We are trying to bring everyone back together and make a joint statement that our main and only enemy is Russia.”
Earlier this year, Edelgireyev got the opportunity to fight the old enemy again, spending three months in Ukraine, where a number of Chechens have joined with Ukrainian forces to fight the Russia-backed rebels. However, after a few months he was asked to leave by the country’s security services after they discovered his past, his father claimed. The Ukrainians told the Chechens it would look bad if the west found out they had “terrorists” in their midst, he said.
Chechen Emirate leader Doku Umarov, centre, poses with two unidentified fighters in an image believed to have been taken in 2010. Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images
So, he came back to Istanbul, where he was one of the top representatives of Vilayat Nokhchicho, the Chechen sector of the Caucasus Emirate, and responsible for fundraising, an associate said.
Many of the Chechens killed in the Turkey hits over recent years were linked to fundraising for the insurgency, and the chain of shadowy assassinations suggests Moscow has preferred the clinical removal of key figures rather than angry public rhetoric, while Ankara has not seemed to put much effort into hunting the killers.
Russia has accused Imkander, a controversial NGO that operates from a suite of offices near Istanbul’s grand Fatih mosque, of aiding the Chechen insurgency. In 2013, Russia unsuccessfully lobbied the UN to put Imkander on a list of terror supporters for links to al-Qaida.
Imkander’s president, Murat Özer, says the group is apolitical and has no ties to the insurgency. It has had no trouble from Turkish authorities “because they know the allegation is nonsense”, Özer said, adding that its main tasks are helping with accommodation and schooling for refugees from the Caucasus.
“We are helping all refugees in Turkey, and are neither supporting nor opposing the Caucasus Emirate, this is not what we do,” said Özer, in an interview at his office, a bank of screens on his desk relaying footage from various security cameras. The group receives frequent threats, and they often notice people watching the office or following them.
Özer insisted the group “completely rejects attacks on civilians”, although a resolution of a 2012 conference on the Caucasus held in Istanbul, organised by Imkander and chaired by Özer, states: “We salute Doku Umarov and the other mujahideen, who are continuing the sacred battle of our ancestors in the Caucasus mountains today.”
Flowers laid at Domodedovo airport the day after 37 people were killed in suicide blast in January 2011.
The statement came well after Umarov’s Caucasus Emirate took responsibility for a 2009 train bombing and a 2011 suicide attack at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, which killed 37 people.
Now relations between Russia and Turkey have soured over the downing of the Russian jet, the quiet acceptance of the status quo by both sides could change. Without cordial bilateral relations to salvage, Russia might become more brazen in its attempts to hunt Chechen insurgents wherever it finds them, while Turkey’s intelligence could put more effort into apprehending the killers or seek more publicity for the trial of the Zone, which has been low-key up to now.
Kadyrov recently criticised Turkey on his Instagram account for sheltering terrorists, while Putin mentioned Turkish government help for terrorists in his annual address to Russia’s elites in December. “We remember that the militants who operated in the North Caucasus in the 1990s and 2000s found refuge and received moral and material assistance in Turkey,” said Putin. “We still find them there.”
So far, there have been no arrests in the Edelgireyev case. At the time of the hit, the secure iron gates to the parking area were open due to a mechanical failure two days previously; apparently not the coincidental technical fault people had assumed. After killing the Chechen, the three assassins sped off, driving straight past a nearby police station. They ditched the car a few miles away, and disappeared into the crowds of Istanbul.
Patrick Cockburn
File image shows Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the son of King Salman, who has been named deputy crown prince (AFP/Getty Images)
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the powerful 29-year-old favourite son of the ageing King Salman AFP/Getty Images
At the end of last year the BND, the German intelligence agency, published a remarkable one-and-a-half-page memo saying that Saudi Arabia had adopted “an impulsive policy of intervention”. It portrayed Saudi defence minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – the powerful 29-year-old favourite son of the ageing King Salman, who is suffering from dementia – as a political gambler who is destabilising the Arab world through proxy wars in Yemen and Syria.
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Spy agencies do not normally hand out such politically explosive documents to the press criticising the leadership of a close and powerful ally such as Saudi Arabia. It is a measure of the concern in the BND that the memo should have been so openly and widely distributed. The agency was swiftly slapped down by the German foreign ministry after official Saudi protests, but the BND’s warning was a sign of growing fears that Saudi Arabia has become an unpredictable wild card. One former minister from the Middle East, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: “In the past the Saudis generally tried to keep their options open and were cautions, even when they were trying to get rid of some government they did not like.”
The BND report made surprisingly little impact outside Germany at the time. This may have been because its publication on 2 December came three weeks after the Paris massacre on 13 November, when governments and media across the world were still absorbed by the threat posed by Islamic State (IS) and how it could best be combatted. In Britain there was the debate on the RAF joining the air war against IS in Syria, and soon after in the US there were the killings by a pro-IS couple in San Bernardino, California.
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Fighters from the Riyadh-backed al-Nusra Front in Aleppo (Reuters)
It was the execution of the Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and 46 others – mostly Sunni jihadis or dissenters – on 2 January that, for almost the first time, alerted governments to the extent to which Saudi Arabia had become a threat to the status quo. It appears to be deliberately provoking Iran in a bid to take leadership of the Sunni and Arab worlds while at the same time Prince Mohammed bin Salman is buttressing his domestic power by appealing to Sunni sectarian nationalism. What is not in doubt is that Saudi policy has been transformed since King Salman came to the throne last January after the death of King Abdullah.
The BND lists the areas in which Saudi Arabia is adopting a more aggressive and warlike policy. In Syria, in early 2015, it supported the creation of The Army of Conquest, primarily made up of the al-Qaeda affiliate the al-Nusra Front and the ideologically similar Ahrar al-Sham, which won a series of victories against the Syrian Army in Idlib province. In Yemen, it began an air war directed against the Houthi movement and the Yemeni army, which shows no sign of ending. Among those who gain are al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, which the US has been fruitlessly trying to weaken for years by drone strikes.
None of these foreign adventures initiated by Prince Mohammed have been successful or are likely to be so, but they have won support for him at home. The BND warned that the concentration of so much power in his hands “harbours a latent risk that in seeking to establish himself in the line of succession in his father’s lifetime, he may overreach”.
The overreaching gets worse by the day. At every stage in the confrontation with Iran over the past week Riyadh has raised the stakes. The attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad might not have been expected but the Saudis did not have to break off diplomatic relations. Then there was the air strike that the Iranians allege damaged their embassy in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen.
None of this was too surprising: Saudi-Iranian relations have been at a particularly low ebb since 400 Iranian pilgrims died in a mass stampede in Mecca last year.
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But even in the past few days, there are signs of the Saudi leadership deliberately increasing the political temperature by putting four Iranians on trial, one for espionage and three for terrorism. The four had been in prison in Saudi Arabia since 2013 or 2014 so there was no reason to try them now, other than as an extra pinprick against Iran.
Saudi Arabia has been engaging in something of a counter attack to reassure the world that it is not going to go to war with Iran. Prince Mohammed said in an interview with The Economist: “A war between Saudi Arabia and Iran is the beginning of a major catastrophe in the region, and it will reflect very strongly on the rest of the world. For sure, we will not allow any such thing.”
The interview was presumably meant to be reassuring to the outside world, but instead it gives an impression of naivety and arrogance. There is also a sense that Prince Mohammed is an inexperienced gambler who is likely to double his stake when his bets fail. This is the very opposite of past Saudi rulers, who had always preferred, so to speak, to bet on all the horses.
A main reason for Saudi Arabia acting unilaterally is its disappointment that the US reached an agreement with Iran over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Again this looks naive: close alliance with the US is the prime reason why the Saudi monarchy has survived nationalist and socialist challengers since the 1930s. Aside from the Saudis’ money and close alliance with the US, leaders in the Middle East have always doubted that the Saudi state has much operational capacity. This is true of all the big oil producers, whatever their ideological make-up. Experience shows that vast oil wealth encourages autocracy, whether it is in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya or Kuwait, but it also produces states that are weaker than they look, with incapable administrations and dysfunctional armies.
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This is the second area in which Prince Mohammed’s interview suggests nothing but trouble for the Saudi royal family. He suggests austerity and market reforms in the Kingdom, but in the context of Middle East autocracies and particularly oil states this breaches an unspoken social contract with the general population. People may not have political liberty, but they get a share in oil revenues through government jobs and subsidised fuel, food, housing and other benefits. Greater privatisation and supposed reliance on the market, with no accountability or fair legal system, means a licence to plunder by those with political power.
This was one of the reasons for the uprising in 2011 against Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. So-called reforms that erode an unwieldy but effective patronage machine end up by benefiting only the elite.
Oil states are almost impossible to reform and it is usually unwise to try. Such states should also avoid war if they want to stay in business, because people may not rise up against their rulers but they are certainly not prepared to die for them.
Till now Singhaji. Things aren't going right in Oman. The GDP took a -8% or so hit though official statistics to be published this week will say +3.5%. They will have to borrow from neighbours (you know who). Its a tight squeeze and independent foreign policy will come under pressure.Singha wrote:oman among all gulf states is not part of this adventure.
Strikes in Syria
Attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 14 strikes in Syria:
-- Near Abu Kamal, one strike destroyed an ISIL pipeline fitter truck.
-- Near Raqqah, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL cranes.
-- Near Ayn Isa, two strikes destroyed an ISIL bed down location, an ISIL command and control node, an ISIL tunnel and an ISIL vehicle.
-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, two strikes destroyed three ISIL-used cranes and damaged a separate ISIL-used crane.
-- Near Manbij, three strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed three ISIL fighting positions.
-- Near Mar’a, four strikes struck four separate ISIL tactical units and wounded an ISIL fighter.
Strikes in Iraq
Bomber, fighter, ground attack and remotely piloted aircraft and rocket artillery conducted 12 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:
-- Near Haditha, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position.
-- Near Hit, one strike struck inoperable coalition equipment, denying ISIL access.
-- Near Kisik, one strike destroyed an ISIL warehouse.
-- Near Mosul, four strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and an ISIL improvised explosive device facility and destroyed 11 ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL vehicle.
-- Near Qayyarah, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL-used culvert.
-- Near Ramadi, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL mortar positions, two ISIL heavy machine guns and two ISIL fighting positions.
Seriously, that's a strange report. What does "struck four separate tactical units" mean? Wiped them out? What is a "tactical unit"?- Near Mar’a, four strikes struck four separate ISIL tactical units and wounded an ISIL fighter.
Two 2,000-pound bombs destroyed the site quickly. But the longstanding impact may be even more significant. The officials said the U.S. plans to strike more financial targets like this one to take away ISIS's ability to function as a state-like entity.
The ISIS terror threat
65 photos: The ISIS terror threat
This is a similar expansion to the target list as happened several weeks ago, when U.S. warplanes began hitting ISIS oil trucks.
The U.S. considers the Mosul strike extremely sensitive, as the building is in an area where civilians are also located, and there was a significant risk of civilian casualties.
Officials would not say how the U.S. learned of the location. But after getting intelligence about the so-called "cash collection and distribution point," U.S. aircraft and drones watched the site for days trying to determine when the fewest number of civilians would be in the area.
Because civilians were nearby during the daylight hours, and ISIS personnel were working there at night, the decision was made to strike at dawn on Sunday.
U.S. commanders had been willing to consider up to 50 civilian casualties from the airstrike due to the importance of the target. But the initial post-attack assessment indicated that perhaps five to seven people were killed.
In recent weeks, the U.S. has said it will assess all targets on a case-by-case basis and may be more willing to tolerate civilians casualties for more significant targets.
The bold and the colourful here confuse me a lot.UlanBatori wrote:The spin artists are truly stretching...
US uses $100M warplanes carrying $10m bombs to destroy "millions" in fake currency made in Pakistan by Al Qaeda ISI Mint .
...
Because civilians were nearby during the daylight hours, and ISIS personnel were working there at night, the decision was made to strike at dawn on Sunday.
U.S. commanders had been willing to consider up to 50 civilian casualties from the airstrike due to the importance of the target. ...
ISIS fighters who fled to the terror group’s Iraqi stronghold of Mosul after being defeated in Ramadi were burned alive in the town square, sources told FoxNews.com, in an unmistakable message to fighters who may soon be defending the northern city from government forces.
Several residents of Mosul recounted the grisly story for stateside relatives, describing the deadly reception black clad jihadists got when they made it to Mosul, some 250 miles north of the city retaken by Iraqi forces operating with cover from U.S. air power.
Istanbul has been hit with a terrorist attack.Hassan Ridha @sayed_ridha now30 seconds ago
#Salma has fallen to #SAA
Terrormonitor.org @Terror_Monitor now35 minutes ago
#TURKEY
Explosion Rocks Central #Istanbul Square, Casualties Reported -
I shore hope so!!the US DoD, probably due to orders, are down playing ISIL casualties, No body counts, no blood, no gore, just leadership hits are acknowledged.
But i am here to tell you the weapons they are using against ISIL are terrifying in effect from the reports i am getting of any friendly fire or "hospital" casualties. it is down right ugly.
phase where their friendly brethren de-briefed and gutted them happily in their age-old tradition.then they came back over the Khyber Pass
You and Vlad aren't the only ones.UlanBatori wrote:...
Back many months ago, way before the Putin-sky phase, there was a casual mention that toll had passed 10,000 long ago. Which is why I could not understand how the 12,000 tanker trucks were allowed to ply their trade every day to enrich Bilal Erdogan and his presumed sire. Seems like there were specific orders to leave them alone, which is what got me (and Comrade Vlad) really riled up.
Suicide bombing, most likelyExplosion at İstanbul’s historic square kills at least 10, media ban imposed
Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Walid Al Moualem on Tuesday met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to discuss bilateral affairs and the Syrian crisis, ahead of the Geneva talks on Syria’s future scheduled for January 25.
..
Amid talk of Syria likely to seek an active military role for India in the Syrian conflict, senior official sources have dismissed the likelihood of India ever getting militarily involved in West Asia. However, India would not be averse to playing a larger role in the peace talks.
Syria has voiced its appreciation for India for its stance of non-interference and urging for a political dialogue, led by the Syrian people, to resolve the four-year-old crisis. Syria has also voiced appreciation for India’s stand in opposing the distinction made between good and bad terrorists.
The dynamics in Syria have changed ever since Russia began launching air strikes since last September against terrorists --- the Islamic State as well as moderates opposed to the Assad regime. The concerted airstrikes by Russia, a close ally of the Syrian regime, has helped stall the advance of the IS in Syria and even pushed the jihadist group from many areas it has occupied in Syria.
India is opposed to a regime change in Syria using force. The West, led by the US, has been actively pushing for the ouster of President Assad.
Read more at http://www.thestatesman.com/news/india/ ... 0eLbJWv.99
Massive bombs and there are more targets that Pentagon wishes to go after.The Pentagon says it has destroyed millions of dollars-worth of cash that terror group Islamic State (previously ISIS/ISIL) was using to pay wages and finance its operations in an airstrike on the jihadist Iraqi stronghold in Mosul.
“The bulk cash distribution site was used by [ISIS] to distribute money to fund terrorist activities,” Lieutenant Commander Ben Tisdale, a US spokesman, said in a statement.
The US-led coalition used two 900kg bombs to destroy the facility, a Pentagon official told AFP on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We estimate in the millions of dollars ... from all their illicit stuff: oil, looting, extortion,” Tisdale said.
...
Deadly Istanbul blast caused by Syria-linked suicide bomber, says Erdoğan
Senior Turkish government official says nine of the 10 victims of blast in Sultanahmet district were German nationals
Paramedics treat people injured in Istanbul explosion – video
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Istanbul, Kareem Shaheen and agencies
Tuesday 12 January 2016
Turkey’s president has said a suicide bomber of Syrian origin is thought to be responsible for a blast near Istanbul’s grandest tourist attractions that has killed 10 people, most of them German.
“I condemn the terror incident in Istanbul, assessed to be an attack by a suicide bomber with Syrian origin,” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a televised speech. “Unfortunately we have 10 dead, including foreigners and Turkish nationals … There are also 15 wounded.”
A senior Turkish government official said at least nine of the victims were German nationals. The official did not have information on the other victim, and it is unclear whether the death toll includes the bomber. Turkish media reported that nine Germans and two Peruvians were among the wounded.
Erdoğan’s comments appeared to signal that the Islamic State terror group was the prime suspect in the attack on Tuesday morning, which occurred a short distance from the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque in the Sultanahmet district. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Istanbul blast: nine of the 10 killed were German, reports claim - as it happened
A government official had told Associated Press the explosion was believed to be “terror-linked”, while two senior Turkish security officials told Reuters there was a “high probability” Isis was responsible.
The city’s governor said an investigation was ongoing to determine the perpetrator. Police sealed off the area and the government imposed a broadcast ban.
The Sultanahmet district is often crowded with tourists visiting monuments in the area. Footage showed ambulances rushing to the scene.
Ramadan, who owns a jewellery shop across the road from the site of the blast, said: “We were sitting inside the shop when we heard a big explosion, which shook the windows. By the time we had gone outside the police were already blocking the scene.
“This is really bad – the situation was already bad, but this will only make things worse for tourism. I didn’t lose any friends, but all of the people of Istanbul are our friends and it is very sad to see this happening.”
One woman who works at a nearby antiques store told Reuters: “The explosion was very loud. We shook a lot. We ran out and saw body parts.”
In a typically defiant speech, Erdoğan attacked foreign academics and writers, including Noam Chomsky, for criticism of his government.
He said: “Pick a side. You are either on the side of the Turkish government, or you’re on the side of the terrorists.”
A security analyst, Metin Gürcan, said the signs pointed to Isis being responsible: “The choice of the location, the targeted nationalities, the way the attack was carried out and the government’s immediate effort to stop the dissemination of any information all point to Isis as the primary suspect.”
He underlined that this latest suicide attack on Turkish soil would lead to more pressure from the international community on Turkey to increase its efforts in the fight against Isis, and to prioritise it over Ankara’s current clash with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK).
“One of the tough questions for Turkey in the coming days is how to allocate security and intelligence capacities to fight more efficiently against Isis-inspired terrorist attacks.”
Gürcan criticised Turkish intelligence networks for failing to dismantle the Isis networks thought to be behind the suicide attacks in Suruç and Ankara last year, despite the government’s knowledge of the networks’ existence.
Arguing that Turkey urgently needed to launch a deradicalisation programme to better counter Salafist networks and Salafist-inspired violence in the country, he also said that it was crucial that Isis networks in the country were more clearly labelled as terrorist organisations in legal terms.
“The definition needs to be very clear, and security forces need to be able to conduct more stringent operations against such cells, the tracking and hunting down of sleeper cells needs to be dramatically improved,” he said.
Turkey borders Syria and is home to more than 2 million refugees from the country but was also until recently a transit hub for Isis militants travelling to take part in the fighting there.
In recent weeks, Turkish authorities have detained several suspected Isis members, with officials saying they were planning attacks in Istanbul.
A Kurdish splinter group – the Freedom Falcons of Kurdistan – claimed responsibility for a mortar attack on Istanbul’s second international airport on 23 December that killed a cleaner and damaged several planes.
The banned leftist Revolutionary People’s Liberation party-front has also staged a string of usually small-scale attacks in Istanbul over the past few months.