Istanbul Ataturk airport attack: At least 36 dead and dozens injured

29th jun 2016

9

Three attackers opened fire near an entry point to the terminal and blew themselves up after police fired at them, officials say.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said early signs suggested the so-called Islamic State was behind the attack.
Recent bombings in Turkey have been linked to either IS or Kurdish separatists.
Tuesday's attack looks like a major co-ordinated assault, says the BBC's Mark Lowen.
Ataturk airport was long seen as a vulnerable target, our Turkey correspondent adds, reporting from a plane stuck on the tarmac in Istanbul.
There are X-ray scanners at the entrance to the terminal but
security checks for cars are limited.

The US Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights between the US and Istanbul.

Taxis were used to rush casualties to hospital after the attack.
Eyewitness Paul Roos told the Associated Press news agency that he was due to fly home to South Africa when the attackers struck.
"We came up from the arrivals to the departures, up the escalator when we heard these shots going off," he said.
"There was this guy going roaming around, he was dressed in black and he had a handgun."
Charles Michel, the Prime Minister of Belgium whose capital city was targeted by bombers in March, tweeted from the EU summit in Brussels: "Our thoughts are with the victims of the attacks at Istanbul's airport. We condemn these atrocious acts of violence."
In December, a blast on the tarmac at a different Istanbul airport, Sabiha Gokcen, killed a cleaner. That attack was claimed by a Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK).

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Major recent attacks

2016
7 June, Istanbul: Car bomb kills seven police officers and four civilians. Claimed by Kurdish militant group TAK
19 March, Istanbul: Suicide bomb kills four people in shopping street. IS blamed.
13 March, Ankara: Car bomb kills 34. Claimed by TAK.
17 February, Ankara: 29 killed in attack on military busses. Claimed by TAK
12 January, Istanbul: 11 Germans killed by Syrian bomber in tourist area
2015
23 December, Istanbul: Bomb kills cleaner at Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport. Claimed by TAK
10 October, Ankara: More than 100 killed at peace rally outside railway station. Claimed by IS
20 July, Suruc, near Syrian border: 34 people killed in bombing in Kurdish town. IS blamed
 

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Security concerns and a Russian boycott over last year's downing of a Russian military jet on the Turkey-Syria border have hit the Turkish tourist sector this year.
More than 61 million passengers travelled through Ataturk airport in 2015.
A US state department travel warning for Turkey, originally published in March and updated on Monday, urges US citizens to "exercise heightened vigilance and caution when visiting public access areas, especially those heavily frequented by tourists."