On New Year’s Eve, an Islamic terrorist dressed in a Santa Claus outfit, loaded his AK-47 and screamed “Allahu Akbar” as he turned a popular Istanbul nightclub filled with revelers into a bloodbath.
And security experts warn the slaughter could be just beginning.
The Islamic State on Monday claimed responsibility for the New Year’s attack at a popular Istanbul nightclub that killed 39 people and wounded scores of others.
Turkish police meanwhile detained eight people in connection to the attack but were still hunting for the gunman who disappeared amid the chaos of the attack.
The ISIS-linked Aamaq News Agency said the attack was carried out by a “heroic soldier of the caliphate” who attacked the nightclub “where Christians were celebrating their pagan feast.”
It said the man fired an automatic rifle and also detonated hand grenades in “revenge for God’s religion and in response to the orders” of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The group described Turkey as “the servant of the cross” and also suggested it was in retaliation for Turkish military offensives against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.
“We let infidel Turkey know that the blood of Muslims that is being shed by its airstrikes and artillery shelling will turn into fire on its territories,” the statement said.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency said eight people were taken into custody by Istanbul anti-terrorism squads and they are being questioned at Istanbul’s main police headquarters. It did not provide further information on the suspects.
Turkish news channel NTV said the terrorist was wearing a Santa Claus outfit when he stormed the nightclub – but their claim is being denied by Turkish prime minister Binali Yildirim.
Earlier, Turkish media reports had said that authorities believed that the Islamic radical gunman, who is still at large, is likely to be either from Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan.
According to the Hurriyet and Karar newspapers, police had also established similarities with the high-casualty suicide bomb and gun attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport in June and was investigating whether the same ISIS cell could have carried out both attacks.
The gunman killed a policeman and another man outside the Reina club in the early hours of 2017 before entering and firing with an automatic rifle at an estimated 600 people partying inside.
Nearly two-thirds of the dead in the upscale club, which is frequented by local celebrities, were foreigners, Turkey’s Anadolu Agency said. Many of them hailed from the Middle East.
Citing Justice Ministry officials, Anadolu reported that 38 of the 39 dead have been identified. The report said 11 of them were Turkish nationals, and one was a Turkish-Belgian dual citizen.
The report says seven victims were from Saudi Arabia; three each were from Lebanon and Iraq; two each were from Tunisia, India, Morocco and Jordan. Kuwait, Canada, Israel, Syria and Russia each lost one citizen.
Relatives of the victims and embassy personal were seen walking into an Istanbul morgue to claim the bodies.
Turkish officials haven’t released the names of those identified.
The mass shooting followed more than 30 violent acts over the past year in Turkey. The country suffered multiple bombings in 2016, including three in Istanbul that authorities blamed on ISIS, a failed coup attempt in July, and renewed conflict with Kurdish rebels in the southeast.
The Islamic State claims to have numerous cells in the country. Analysts think it was behind suicide bombings last January and March that targeted tourists on Istanbul’s iconic Istiklal Street as well as the attack at Ataturk Airport in June, which killed 45 people. Authorities have said the three suicide bombers in the airport attack were Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and there has been speculation that Akhmed Chatayev, a Chechen extremist known to be a top lieutenant in the ISIS militant group, may have directed the attack.
In August, Turkey sent troops and tanks into northern Syria, to clear a border area from the ISIS and also curb the territorial advances of Syrian Kurdish forces in the region. The incursion followed an ISIS suicide attack on an outdoor wedding party in the city of Gaziantep, near the border with Syria, that killed more than 50 people.
In December, ISIS released a video purportedly showing the killing of two Turkish soldiers and urged its supporters to “conquer” Istanbul. Turkey’s jets regularly bomb the group in the northern Syrian town of Al-Bab. Turkish authorities haven’t confirmed the authenticity of the video.
Last week, Turkey and Russia brokered a cease-fire for Syria that excludes the ISIS and other groups considered to be terrorist organizations.
On Monday, Anadolu said more than 100 Islamic State targets in Syria have been hit by Turkey and Russia in separate operations.
Citing the Turkish Chief of General Staff’s office, Anadolu said Turkish jets struck eight ISIS group targets while tanks and artillery fired upon 103 targets near Al Bab, killing 22 extremists while destroying many structures. The Russian jets also attacked ISIS targets in Dayr Kak, five miles to the southwest of Al Bab.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the attacker left a gun at the club and escaped by “taking advantage of the chaos” that ensued. Some customers reportedly jumped into the waters of the Bosporus to escape the attack.
The Associated Press contributed to this article
Only one way to defeat them. Completely destroy them like liberalism and progressive in this country. Not saying a death threat but to eliminate them completely from our society.
I could not agree more. ISIS is the No 1 enemy, and it is the stupid liberal-elite type of policies that have allowed them to grow to be the force that they are today. No country in the world is safe now. A lone gunman could appear at ANY SHOPPING MALL OR NIGHT CLUB OR CHURCH ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.
They need to be completely eradicated –and quickly. Let us hope that Donald Trump will reverse the ridiculous Obama policies in Syria, and join Russia and Syria in bombing and gunning down every last member of ISIS.
Jim Clarke
i agree we need to deport all Islamic or muslim people.We don’t need these hate filled people.They don’t care who they kill or who they use to kill people. They will send their sons and daughters to explode bombs.
They will send mostly their sons.
Their daughters are used to produce five or ten sons, so that more bombs can be exploded.
This is one of the reasons that they allow more than one wife per male – they kill off so many of their males that to make the most use of their baby-producers, they have to allow herd breeding.
The other reason is that they are primitives, and behave like animals as a result.
YES
And you have one stupid president who supports ISIS,
they call it a gun attack, not by the real name, TERRORIST ATTACK!!!!
He’s not stupid; he’s on the other side!
There is absolutely no way to destroy Isis/Daesh as the are simply following in the footsteps of Mohammed and his 65 military campaigns many of which involved deceiving his enemies into friendship then slaughtering them because they didn’t believe in him as the prophet of God.
There is absolutely nothing Daesh does that is not supported in the Koran. Islam is not a religion of peace.
There will be no happy endings just continued death
All muslim based terroristes must be completely destroyed.
Only the slow witted thinking of the world has allowed them to become very dangerous to mankind.
The world is not safe with a cancer like ISIS,and manny will die if promped action is not taken.
Islam is not a religion, period.
It meets all of the requirements of a cult, including one that most cults do NOT meet: Human sacrifice.
Yes, just as with covens of witches and groups of Satanists, and with a few cults, the act of calling to a deity to witness and approve the murder(s) of human being(s) is called by only one name: human sacrifice.
Why are we letting the Muslims off by not labeling that activity what it is, and thus removing their status as a “religion”?
It’s way past time.
Going to have to reinstate the Death penalty for these multiple killing blood baths
OK,,then I’ll say it. Open season on them with no bag limit.
Totally they need to be completely annihilated they are non-human why? They have no compassion and that is something that cannot be changed. We need to destroy the evil barbaric cult of Islam in its entirety.
And what will help with the destruction of this cult (this is not just calling Islam an unflattering name; it meets all the requirements to be labeled a cult) is pointing out a simple fact. The act of murdering people while calling upon a deity to witness and approve the murder has had a label for hundreds, if not thousands, of years: HUMAN SACRIFICE.
Any other group that does the same thing (for instance, covens of witches, Satanists, some cults) is instantly labeled as practicing HUMAN SACRIFICE. Why are we allowing Islam to be protected from that label?
Islam would lose much support from its sympathizers and apologists if it lost its cover of “religion” and it were officially re-designated as a “human sacrifice-practicing cult.”
Once it loses most of its support, Islam’s goal of forcing the entire world under its heinous heel would be severely damaged.
We’re going to have to get on this, though; the average Muslim female produces WAY more children than the women of western civilization do – the numbers are not in our favor.
It just goes to show that even a Muslim country like Turkey are not immune to the hatred of Muslims against Muslims. It is so easy to go to paradise in Islam!! All you have to do is declare Jihad on anyone you don’t like and kill them. It would be so good to see all out war erupt between Suni and Shia Muslims and that they completely destroy each other. The main question for allah to answer is which ones quality for martydom?
President Elect Trump is spot on we must “destroy ISIS to the last member” whether they a fighter or not – kill them all.
“heroic soldier of the caliphate” : What ?—–These so-called people are lunatics of a dark and sinister past; who continue to live the life of a fanatic that they worship as their prophet. They are in-bred moronic idiots not deserving of migrating to anywhere other than the Hell they are the spawn of !!
Agree 100%. They have no right to be treated as human because they behave as sub humans. They are as rabid dogs and need to be treated as such!
Which religion doesn’t fit:
Allah – Enslave or murder anyone who won’t convert to Islam; rape and murder of non Muslims is legal.
Satan – The more murder, torture and rape you commit, the better.
God – Love one another.
It’s seeming more and more as though Satan may have played a joke on the descendants of jealous and petulant Ishmael, born on the wrong side of Abraham’s blanket, and set up a pedophile in the Middle East to concoct a new religion to push the philosophies of Satan, under his new name, Allah.
With close to a third of the world population following “Allah,” and much of the rest of the world licking the shoes of the Muslims, it looks like it working, doesn’t it?
Thanks, Abraham. You and your pagan slut-servant have managed to severely damage the entire world. Hope you’re proud.
Obama’s “peaceful” religion at work.
Just look at all of the blood on Obama’s hands. All Americans should hang their heads in shame that he was a President of this great country
I am playing the devil’s advocate and ask myself a question: what in the world were the seven Saudi Arabian victims doing in a nightclub where is liquor is consumed, dancing and carousing are the things one does in said places? Aren’t those so religious that such a substance is prohibited? What a bunch of hypocrites!!!! Well, there goes Santa Claus ….
I spent eleven years in Saudi Arabia.
Although there is one old case of a very high ranking official sending his own son to execution for a capital offense, in general it works the same way for the Saudis as it works here: If you have enough money and/or influence, you can pretty much do as you please.
This isn’t complicated.
Calling to one’s deity to witness and approve the killing(s) of human beings is called “human sacrifice.”
If we can wake up enough non-Muslims to the fact that the Muslims are practicing human sacrifice, it will remove Islam’s standing as a “religion.”
Once it is no longer viewed as a religion, there will be no ground for the Muslim apologists to stand on, ie, “We have to allow all religions to practice their beliefs” etc.
When the guilty, foolish and suicidal sympathy for Muslims is gone, we will at last be able to clean up this horrendous evil.
Lets hope that happens before the Muslims are able to establish their Islamic World Abyss … or, as they call it, Caliphate.
We need to destroy all these hate people Now!!!!!!!!!!!!. They are not wanted in our country or any other country.
Who supports ISIS? It is an islam operation. The Saudi and Iran disagreements are not over the need for a caliphate to purge the world of infidels. Only over who will be the caliph? He, never her, will be Mo’s successor.and they both claim to be the “true” successor. Islam, is in the process of bringing back Turkey under sharia law, the universal law that is the koran coded into law that will be their “constitution” and muslim UN. All islamic nations have to be under sharia law and all people will be subjects, not citizens since they have no rights Only obedience.
Our MSM is helping the Islamic World Caliphate by refusing to divulge unflattering truths to the women of America, and the rest of western civilization.
Of course, those women could find out with very little effort, so there is some guilt on their part, too.
But, the women are not failing to educate themselves in a deliberate attempt to force themselves and the rest of the world under the evil of Islam, whereas the MSM is involved in such an attempt.
Nuke them it ended ww2. They are nothing but animals. It’s ok for them to kill innocent people but if we do we are bad.0
Suggested reading. Brigitte Gabriel’s books ‘ They must be Stopped ‘ and ‘Because they Hate ‘ very informative. The Muslim migration is a trojan horse waiting to pounce.
They are under human been barbarian animals. Kill them right now all of them, otherwise we would not survive.Until they are not clean out them from all over, and chase them back to their country, we will have no peace.After them all other barbarian liberals who support them for big money . From Europe and America too!!!!!
Thomas Jefferson would agree with you. He had to clean up the Barbary slavers.
Of course, he would never have allowed Muslims into America. He LOVED America.
Make that the “Barbary slavers/pirates”.
If the people of western countries do not force their “leaders” to stop the invasion by Muslims, we are going to see so many of these headlines that they might as well read:
Normal! Islamic terror strikes New Year’s Eve
Kill all the radical Muslims and their religious cult starting on Pennsylvania Avenue!
You know banning liberalism is one thing since the majority of liberals follow the same dogma and no matter what they say it is not a religion, but to say everyone who practices Islam should be banned is a stretch, if it were Christians would I want to be lumped in with the radical types? The Lord told us not to argue over religion, the radicalization of a religion is not the fault of all those who believe in that religion, but rather those who submit to the radicalness of it.
We should always be aware that ISIS is a creation of Killary Clinton and on her advice the Arab countries financed this group as well. The name Al Queda was always a used by the CIA for their own actions. The media has demonized all Arabs and we are led to believe that they are all fanatics following the teachings of the (Hypothetical) Mohammed. Many of them are just ordinary people who want to live in peace. It is the old principle of the Romans: divide and rule. Create an enemy and the sheeple will not see who pulls the strings behind the scene. There are radical Christians, radical Jews, radical Hindu and radical Muslim but this does not mean ALL are radicals. There is an easy way to find out if the media is lying: The more often and the longer you hear something the bigger is the lie. And just to set the record straight: I am NOT a Muslim.