Attention focuses on Chechen extremist in Turkey attack

Associated Press

ISTANBUL

Attention focused Friday on whether a Chechen extremist known to be a top lieutenant in the Islamic State group was involved in the suicide attacks that killed 44 people at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, told CNN that Akhmed Chatayev directed Tuesday night’s attack at one of the world’s busiest airports. The CIA and White House declined to comment on McCaul’s assertion, and officials said the investigation of the bombing is still ongoing. McCaul could not be reached to comment further.

Turkish officials also were not able to confirm Chatayev’s role. The Sabah newspaper, which is close to the government, said police had launched a manhunt for him.

McCaul said Chatayev’s whereabouts are unknown. The 35-year-old one-armed militant, who fought in Chechnya against Russian forces and their local allies in the early 2000s before fleeing to the West, was put on the U.S. list of suspected terrorists in 2015. That same year, he resurfaced in an IS video as the commander of the group’s Chechen battalion in Syria.

Although no one has claimed responsibility for the airport attack, the Islamic State group is suspected, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated Friday that IS was “most probably” behind it. The group has boasted of having cells in Turkey and other countries.

“They have no connection to Islam. Their place is in hell,” Erdogan said, speaking in Istanbul after Friday prayers. “These people were innocent; they were children, women, elderly. ... They embarked on a journey unaware, and came face to face with death.”

The state-run Anadolu Agency reported Friday that the Bakirkoy Public Prosecutor’s office had established the identity of two of the airport attackers, Rakim Bulgarov and Vadim Osmanov, and was trying to identify the third.