Turkey identifies Istanbul attacker, manhunt goes on

Turkey has established the identity of the gunman who killed 39 people in an attack on an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Day, its foreign minister said, and further arrests were made today, but the attacker himself remains at large.

The gunman shot dead a police officer and a civilian at the entrance to the exclusive Reina nightclub on Sunday then opened fire with an automatic rifle inside, reloading his weapon half a dozen times and shooting the wounded as they lay on the ground.

Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.

“The identity of the person carrying out the attack in Ortakoy has been determined,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a televised interview with the Anadolu Agency. He gave no details.

The gunman may have trained in Syria, a security source and a newspaper report said yesterday.

Police detained 27 people as part of the attack investigation in the western city of Izmir today, including women and children, who had travelled from Konya, the Dogan news agency said. Video footage showed some of them being brought out of an apartment building to waiting vehicles.

Anadolu reported on Tuesday that 14 people had been detained over the attack while NTV reported that two foreign nationals had been detained at Istanbul’s main airport.

As a result of the attack, Turkey’s parliament yesterday voted in favour of extending emergency rule by a further three months, effective from 19 January.

Emergency rule, first imposed in Turkey after a failed military coup on 15 July and then extended in October, enables the government to bypass parliament in enacting new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms when deemed necessary.