Turks net 13 said to have ISIS ties

Official says bombers Russian, Uzbek, Kyrgyz; toll at 44

Police patrol as mourners gather Thursday at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul for a memorial service for victims of the suicide attacks Tuesday at the airport.
Police patrol as mourners gather Thursday at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul for a memorial service for victims of the suicide attacks Tuesday at the airport.

ISTANBUL -- As the death toll from the Istanbul airport attack rose Thursday to 44, a senior Turkish official said the three suicide bombers who carried it out were from Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and police raided neighborhoods for people linked to the Islamic State militant group.

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AP

Mourners gather Thursday at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul for a memorial ceremony for the victims of Tuesday’s bombings at the airport. Turkish security forces conducted raids in three neighborhoods Thursday looking for people suspected of links to the Islamic State group, which Turkey blames in the attack that killed 44.

Turkish authorities have said all information suggested the Tuesday night attack on Ataturk Airport, one of the world's busiest, was the work of the Islamic State, which boasted this week of having cells in Turkey, among other countries.

The police raided 16 locations in three neighborhoods on both the Asian and European sides of Istanbul, rounding up 13 people suspected of having links to the Islamic State.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility by the militant group, which has used Turkey as a crossing point to establish itself in neighboring Syria and Iraq. The Islamic State has threatened Turkey in its propaganda publications, and the NATO member has blamed the Islamic State for several major bombings in the past year in both Ankara and Istanbul.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, appearing at the opening of a suspension bridge in northwestern Turkey with Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, mentioned "forces" that don't want the country to succeed and are using terrorism.

He referred to the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG and the Islamic State.

"They have been let loose against us by the forces who hold their leashes," Erdogan said. "The bombs that explode in our country today will tomorrow explode in the hands of those who sent them."

A senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because government regulations did not authorize him to talk to the media, said the attackers were from Russia and the Central Asian nations of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. He could not confirm media reports that the Russian was from the restive Dagestan region in the Caucasus mountains.

A medical team was working around the clock to identify the attackers, the official said, noting their bodies had suffered extensive damage.

Kyrgyzstan's Foreign Ministry denied that an attacker came from that country, saying its representatives had talked to Turkish officials who said the identities were still to be determined.

Asked about the possible involvement of a Russian in the attacks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had no information.

There was no comment from Uzbekistan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that between 5,000 and 7,000 people from Russia and other nations of the former Soviet Union have joined the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Many Muslims from Russia's southern region of Chechnya have settled in Turkey since the time of the Chechen separatist wars, and Moscow has repeatedly accused Turkey of failing to cooperate in tracking down suspected terrorists.

People from Chechnya and other provinces in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region have had a visible presence among Islamic State fighters. Tarkhan Batirashvili, also known as Omar al-Shishani, or Omar the Chechen, an ethnic Chechen from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, rose to the rank of a senior Islamic State commander before he died of wounds suffered in a U.S. airstrike in Syria earlier this year. Al-Shishani served as a magnet for jihadi fighters from the former Soviet Union.

Turkish state media said the death toll in the attack rose to 44 after a 25-year-old airport worker died.

Interior Minister Efkan Ala said the dead included 19 foreigners. Dozens from the 230 people reported wounded are still hospitalized.

Two memorial services for victims were held at the airport, one of them honoring taxi drivers slain in the attack. Five funerals were held elsewhere, including for four members of the Amiri family.

Abdulmumin Amiri said he escaped death because he went to look for a taxi while his relatives watched their luggage.

"At that time, the bomb went off," he said. "I was about 4 or 5 meters away."

Nilsu Ozmeric wept over the coffin of her fiance, Jusuf Haznedaroglu, a 32-year-old airport worker who was fatally wounded while waiting for a bus to go home.

"The wedding was [to be] next week," sobbed his mother, Cervinye Haznedaroglu, as visitors offered condolences.

In Paris, Deputy Mayor Bruno Julliard said the Eiffel Tower would be illuminated in the red and white colors of the Turkish flag to honor the victims in Istanbul and as "a reminder of the unbreakable support" of his city.

The U.N. Security Council condemned the attack, saying that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable and are "one of the most serious threats to international peace and security."

Unconfirmed details of the attack flooded Turkish media outlets. The private Dogan news agency said the Russian attacker had entered the country a month ago and left his passport in a house the men had rented in the Fatih neighborhood.

Turkey's interior minister said the explosives were a mix of RDX, TNT and PETN that were "manufactured." That combination is military-grade, raising the question of how the attackers obtained the bombs, said Jimmie Oxley, a chemist and explosives expert at the University of Rhode Island.

The Dogan news agency broadcast video of the police raids showing a special forces team carrying what appeared to be a steel shield for protection as police entered a building.

In separate police operations, nine suspects believed to be linked to the Islamic State also were detained in the coastal city of Izmir. It was not clear whether the suspects had any links to the airport attack.

The Izmir raids unfolded simultaneously in the Konak, Bucak, Karabaglar and Bornova neighborhoods, according to the Anadolu Agency. Police seized three hunting rifles and documents relating to the Islamic State.

The report said the suspects were in contact with Islamic State militants in Syria and were engaged in "activities that were in line with the organization's aims and interests," including providing financial resources, recruits and logistical support.

On Saturday, security forces killed two suspected Islamic State militants trying to cross the border illegally after they ignored orders to stop, media outlets reported. One of the militants was wanted on accusations that he was planning a suicide attack in Ankara or the southern city of Adana, Anadolu said.

Information for this article was contributed by Zeynep Bilginsoy, Bulut Emiroglu, Cinar Kiper, Bram Janssen, Lori Hinnant and Vladimir Isachenkov of The Associated Press.

A Section on 07/01/2016

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