Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Wednesday that Nabil Fadli, the 27-year-old suicide bomber who blew himself up in Istanbul on Tuesday and killed 10 people, had entered the country as a refugee. Germany later announced that all those killed were German citizens. Fadli’s movements had not been monitored because his name did not appear on any suspect lists.
“This person was not being followed as a wanted individual. He entered Turkey as an ordinary refugee,” Davutoglu said in Istanbul. “All his contacts will now be traced.”
He said the Turkish authorities had arrested 4 people suspected of involvement in the attack on Wednesday. Interior Minister Efkan Ala had earlier said security forces arrested one person on Tuesday.
Turkish state media reported that security forces had arrested 74 suspected members of the group calling itself Islamic State in different parts of the country in recent days. It was unclear whether they were linked to the Istanbul attack.
Anadolu Agency said the 74 detainees included 16 people suspected of preparing a major attack in Ankara. Fadli was born in Saudi Arabia but left with his family to return to Syria in 1996.
The Turkish newspaper Sabah said he had entered Turkey from Syria as a refugee on the fifth of this month and that immigration authorities had taken his fingerprints.
Asked whether Turkey planned airstrikes against the group, Davutoglu said Turkey would “respond at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way.”
He said Russia’s involvement in Syria’s civil war had become an obstacle to Turkish airstrikes against the group, adding that “the Russian air force appears to be protecting the group’s militants.”