Turkish officials launched a nationwide manhunt for the gunman responsible for a mass New Year’s shooting at a packed Istanbul nightclub, which the government denounced as an act of terrorism.
It was the deadliest incident on a night when security officials around the globe were nervously poised for attacks and cities bolstered anti-terrorism measures at public gatherings to usher in the new year.
Nearly two-thirds of the people killed were foreigners, many from the Middle East, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency said. No Americans were believed to be among the fatalities.
The news agency said the bodies of 25 foreign nationals killed in the attack would be delivered to their families Monday.
The gunman killed a Turkish police officer outside the Reina nightclub before opening fire on holiday revelers inside shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday, killing 39 people and wounding 70 before fleeing the scene, Istanbul Gov. Vasip Sahin told reporters.
The attacker “rained bullets in a very cruel and merciless way on innocent people who were there to celebrate New Year’s,” Mr. Sahin said at a press conference.
Characterizing the shooting as a “massacre, [and] a truly inhumane savagery” against innocent civilians, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Turkish military and law enforcement officers were scouring the country for the shooter, whose motivation was unknown.
“Our security forces have started the necessary operations. God willing, he will be caught in a short period of time,” Mr. Soylu said, according to The Associated Press.
Neither the Islamic State nor the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Turkish separatist group also known as the PKK which Ankara has labeled as a terrorist organization, has claimed responsibility for the attack. Both groups have targeted the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey endured a tumultuous 2016, with three of its multiple bombings in Istanbul alone, a failed coup attempt, the assassination of the Russian ambassador and renewed conflict with Kurdish rebels in the southeast.
Islamic State “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and other top members of the terrorist group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, advocated for increased attacks against targets inside Turkey amid the country’s escalating offensive against the group’s redoubts in northern Syria.
Mr. Erdogan minced no words in assigning blame for the New Year’s massacre. In a televised address, he condemned “the terror attack in Istanbul’s Ortakoy neighborhood in the first hours of 2017.”
“He is an armed terrorist as we know it,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said at a press conference.
If the Islamic State claims responsibility for the Istanbul shooting, it would be the latest in a number of high-profile, mass-casualty attacks carried out by the group’s fighters and sympathizers, including those in San Bernardino, California; Orlando, Florida; and Paris.
As Islamic State battlefield losses mount against the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria, “low-resource, high-impact” attacks in America and Europe will likely become more common, counterterrorism analysts say.
Islamic State planners realized they did not need to hijack a plane or plant a truck bomb in Times Square to be effective. A heavy truck or easy access to semi-automatic weapons “is all you need” to carry out an attack, Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said during a counterterrorism forum in Washington in June.
The U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul on Sunday warned American citizens to keep their movements in the city “to an absolute minimum,” The Associated Press reported. The White House condemned what it called a “horrific terrorist attack” and offered U.S. help to Turkey. The U.N. Security Council condemned the “heinous and barbaric” assault in the “strongest terms.”
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Carlo Muñoz can be reached at cmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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