The gunman who killed 39 people at an upscale Istanbul nightclub on New Year's eve had fought in Syria for Islamic State jihadists, a report said on Tuesday, as Turkish authorities intensified their hunt for the attacker.
A photo of a passport identifying the suspected gunman as 28-year-old Iakhe Mashrapov of Kyrgyzstan was widely circulated on social media and local Turkish media outlets.
Prominent Hurriyet columnist Abdulkadir Selvi said the attacker had been identified with investigators focusing on the idea he was from Central Asia. He said the assailant showed signs of being well trained in the use of arms and had fought in Syria for IS jihadists.
Selvi said the assailant had been trained in urban guerrilla warfare in Syria and used these techniques in the attack, shooting from the hip rather than as a sniper.
The attacker had been "specially selected" to carry out the shooting, he said. According to Hurriyet, just 28 bullets failed to hit a target.
Selvi wrote that the priority now was to detain the assailant and neutralise the cell that apparently backed him, in order to prevent any new attack.
"This specially trained terrorist has still not been detained and is still wandering dangerously amongst us," he wrote.
He said that an IS strike was also planned in Ankara on New Year's night but that it had been prevented after eight IS suspects were arrested in the capital. There were no further details.
Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Monday that authorities found finger prints belonging to the gunman while security video and cell phone footage from a selfie video reported to be the suspected gunman filming himself walking around Istanbul was widely circulated by Turkish media.
The Islamic State terrorist group claimed in a statement that one of its "soldiers" was behind the shooting attack on the Reina nightclub, calling it "the most famous nightclub where Christians were celebrating their pagan feast."
It accused Turkey, a majority-Muslim country, of serving Christians, in a possible reference to Ankara's alliance with the international coalition fighting IS in neighboring Syria and Iraq.
Turkey is a backer of Syria's opposition, but has also been waging its own military intervention in Syria since August, targeting both IS and Kurdish fighters. The US-led coalition carrying out strikes against IS in Syria uses airbases inside Turkey.
The assailant arrived by taxi to the Reina club, one of the city's most exclusive nightspots, around 1:15 am local time where he produced a weapon, reportedly a Kalashnikov, and shot dead a policeman and a civilian at the entrance.
According to Hurriyet, the gunman then fired four magazines containing a total of 120 bullets around the club, as terrified guests flung themselves into the freezing waters of the Bosphorus in panic.
The gunman changed clothes and left the nightclub and has managed to evade security forces since the attack.
Of the 39 dead, 27 were foreigners, mainly from Arab countries, with coffins repatriated overnight to countries including Israel, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
This is a developing story.
http://isis.liveuamap.com/en/2017/3-...eina-terrorist http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/intern...rom-kyrgyzstan
