As thousands of people across the world marked with festivities the start of 2017, a gunman shot his way into a nightclub in Istanbul, just over an hour into the new year, killing 39 people and injuring dozens of others. The attack, according to an announcement by Turkish interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, was carried out by a single gunman who is still at large. “According to the information we received from the police, there was one gunman. There weren’t multiple gunmen. He was wearing a coat and trousers. He went inside as he opened fire around and we were informed that he was wearing different clothes inside and he tried to get out. Our police forces continue to assess this information,” said Soylu.
Among the victims of the terror attack, most of whom were tourists, was an Israeli woman, identified as 19 years old Leanne Nasser. She was at the nightclub with two friends from her home village of Tira in central Israel. One of her friends was among the wounded while the third had yet been located. The father of Leanne Nasser told reports he urged his daughter not to travel to Turkey prior to the attack, because of the unstable security situation in the country. “I told her the security situation (in Turkey) isn’t good and that it’s very dangerous but she insisted on going, because her friends wanted to go as a group.” / “The security situation is like this all over the world. She should not have gone there,” said Zaher Nasser. The Islamic State released a statement in which it claimed responsibility for the attack.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during his weekly cabinet meeting, stressed that the struggle against terror was international, echoing a statement made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, that the most significant threat today was acts of terror by extreme Muslim groups. “The struggle against terror is an international struggle. Over the weekend Chancellor Merkel said what we’ve been saying for many years: the biggest threat to the world today is terror carried out by extreme Muslim groups. Of course, this terror keeps beating us, as we’ve seen, only yesterday there was a deadly terror attack in Turkey, we send our condolences to the families of the victims, and wish the injured a swift recovery, which unfortunately include an Israeli citizen and I have to add there is another Israeli citizen which her fate is currently unclear,” said Netanyahu.
In response to the attack, Turkish warplanes struck Islamic State targets in Syria, near the town of al-Bab that is controlled by the extreme Muslim group. Even though the Turkish military defined the aerial strikes as a ‘retaliation’, the intensified attack is as part of a Turkish operation, dubbed ‘Euphrates Shield’, which was launched more than four months ago, to drive both Islamic State and Kurdish militants away from the Turkish border region and in recent weeks has reached the town of al-Bab.