Chinese Muslim Uighurs and Dagestanis questioned over Istanbul nightclub massacre

ISTANBUL // Turkish police are closing in on the gunman who killed 39 people at an Istanbul nightclub, a senior government official said on Thursday, insisting the suspect’s possible whereabouts and contacts have been established.

Turkish Deputy prime minister Veysi Kaynak said the gunman who attacked Istanbul’s upmarket Reina nightclub was probably from China’s Muslim Uighur minority and a “specially trained member of a (terror) cell.”

“The security forces have determined his identify, his possible whereabouts have been determined ... His contacts have also been determined,” Mr Kaynak told A Haber news channel. “We can say that the circle is closing in on him.”

Mr Kaynak said the authorities believe the suspect, whose name has not been revealed, is still inside Turkey because of swift measures taken to alert airports, although they have not ruled out the possibility that he may have escaped after the attack on New Year’s Eve.

Mr Kaynak’s comments came hours after police conducted more raids in their hunt for the gunman and detailed several people at a housing complex on the outskirts of Istanbul. State-run news agency Anadolu said police and special operations teams detained an undisclosed number of Uighurs who were suspected of “aiding and abetting” the gunman.

Twenty others were detained in Izmir, most of them from the Muslim-Russian republic of Dagestan, but also some from Syria and some Uighurs. They are thought to have lived with the gunman in an alleged ISIL cell house in the central Turkish city of Konya.

At least 39 other people — including 11 women — are already in custody in connection with the attack.

ISIL claimed responsibility, saying the nightclub attack was in retaliation for Turkish military operations in northern Syria. Most of the victims were foreign nationals from the Middle East.

The Reina massacre was the latest in a string of attacks in Turkey by either ISIL or Kurdish militants since the summer of 2015.

On Thursday, suspected Kurdish militants opened fire at police who stopped them at a checkpoint in the western city of Izmir before detonating their explosives-laden vehicle. A policeman and a courthouse employee were killed in the attack, while two assailants also were shot dead.

The governor of Izmir, Erol Ayyildiz said preliminary indications pointed to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which resumed attacks in Turkey after a fragile peace process collapsed in 2015.

The nightclub gunman reportedly escaped in a taxi after the attack. Turkish media have widely published images of the suspect, including a selfie video filmed in Istanbul’s Taksim Square.

Security has been tightened around Istanbul and at border crossings and airports to prevent him from fleeing Turkey.

Another deputy prime minister, Numan Kurtulmus suggested in an interview with the Hurriyet Daily news newspaper that “foreign intelligence services” could be behind the attack, pointing at the “professional” manner in which it was carried out.

“I am of the opinion that it’s not possible for the perpetrator to have carried out such an attack without any support. It seems like a secret service thing. All these things are being assessed,” said Mr Kurtulmus.

* Associated Press