Turkish authorities identify airport suicide bombers

Death toll rises to 43

The three suicide bombers who attacked Istanbul airport were a Russian, an Uzbek and a Kyrgyz, a senior Turkish official said yesterday, hours after police carried out sweeping raids across the city looking for Islamic State suspects.

Tuesday’s gunfire and suicide bombing attack at Ataturk Airport killed 43 people and wounded more than 230 others.

Interior Minister, Efkan Ala, said 43 people were killed in the attack, including 19 foreign nationals. Of those who were wounded, 94 remained in hospital, the Istanbul Governor’s office reported.
Unconfirmed details of the attack continued to emerge on Turkish media.

The day opened with police conducting raids on 16 locations in Istanbul, rounding up 22 people suspected of having links to the Islamic State group, the most likely perpetrator of the attack at one of the world’s busiest airports. The manhunt spanned three neighbourhoods on the city’s Asian and European sides.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations, did not name the attackers.

“A medical team is working around the clock to conclude the identification process,” the official told AP, noting that extensive soft-tissue damage had complicated efforts to identify the attackers. The official could not confirm Turkish media reports that the Russian national was from the restive Daghestan region.

From the start, Turkish authorities have said all information suggests the attack was the work of IS, which this week boasted to have cells in Turkey, among other countries.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility by the militant group, which used Turkey as a crossing point to establish itself in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.