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Turkey Hits IS Targets in Syria, Iraq, After Istanbul Bombing

Thursday, January 14, 2016 8:00 am | < 1 Minute Read
ANKARA (Reuters) —
Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala (R) and his German counterpart Thomas De Maiziere address a joint news confernence in Istanbul, Turkey January 13, 2016. Turkish authorities detained three Russian nationals suspected of links with Islamic State following a suicide bomb attack in Istanbul that killed 10 tourists, media reports said on Wednesday. A suicide bomber thought to have crossed recently from Syria killed nine German and one Peruvian tourists on Tuesday in Istanbul's historic Sultanahmet Square, a major tourist draw, in an attack Turkey blamed on Islamic State. Fifteen people were also hurt in the attack. REUTERS/Murad SezerTPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala (R.) and his German counterpart Thomas De Maiziere address a joint news conference in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, a day after an attack killed ten German tourists. (Reuters/Murad Sezer)

Turkish land forces have fired 500 times on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq, killing almost 200 terrorists, in response to a suicide bombing in Istanbul blamed on the group, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday.

Turkey will carry out air strikes if necessary and will maintain its “determined stance” until Islamic State leaves its border areas, Davutoglu said at a conference of Turkish ambassadors in Ankara. The strikes took place in the past 48 hours, he said.

The suicide bomber killed 10 German tourists in central Istanbul on Tuesday. Seven people have been detained in connection with the bombing, Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala said on Thursday.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that one of the three Russian citizens arrested in Turkey is suspected by the Russian authorities of being linked to the Islamic State terror group. The name of the man is Aidar Suleimanov, born in 1984, Zakharova told a weekly news briefing.

 

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