Istanbul/Cairo – A member of Islamic State carried out a New Year’s Eve attack that killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub, a statement published online by apparent supporters of the group said.
The attack was carried out in response to an order from the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to target Turkey, according to the statement on Monday.
dpa could not independently verify the authenticity of the statement but it appeared consistent with previous claims by the group. It was published via a channel on the Telegram messaging app that has carried previous Islamic State messages.
The gunman who carried out the attack, which also left dozens injured, remained at large Monday. A police manhunt is under way. The attacker could have left his weapon in the club and mingled with the fleeing crowds to make his escape, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Sunday.
Earlier reports had said that there may have been two attackers, but Yildirim spoke of only one gunman. At least 26 of those killed were foreign nationals, mainly from the Middle East, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported late Sunday, citing sources from the Justice Ministry.
Seven of the dead were Saudi tourists. Three came from Lebanon, three from Iraq and two from each Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and India. There was one victim was from Kuwait, Canada, Israel, Syria and Russia respectively, the report said.
Twelve of the victims were Turks, with one of those holding dual Turkish-Belgian nationality. One body has yet to be identified.
Turkey and allied Syrian rebel forces invaded Islamic State-held areas of northern Syria in August, forcing the extremist group from its last stretch of the border between the two countries.
In November al-Baghdadi called on his group’s fighters to attack Turkey. Days later, the group issued its first official claim for a bomb attack inside Turkey, a blast that killed nine people at a police station in the mainly Kurdish south-east.
-dpa
