Two males accused of a terrorist assault on a Moscow live performance corridor had frolicked in Istanbul a number of weeks earlier than the assault, a senior Turkish safety official stated on Tuesday, including that the shortness of the lads’s visits prompt they’d not turn out to be radicalized in Turkey.
This data got here on the identical day that the Turkish Minister of Inside, Ali Yerlikaya, introduced: Written on the X platform The Turkish authorities introduced that Turkish safety providers had arrested 147 individuals allegedly linked to ISIS since final June.
Yerlikaya didn’t say what number of of those suspects had been arrested because the assault on the Moscow live performance corridor final week or whether or not any of these beforehand arrested have been believed to be linked to this assault. The Islamic State claimed accountability for the assault.
The senior safety official, who spoke on situation of anonymity because of authorities protocols, stated one of many suspects within the assault who traveled to Turkey, Saeedkarami Rachapalizoda, arrived in Istanbul on January 5 and spent 16 days in a lodge within the metropolis’s Fatih district. The official stated he left for Moscow on March 2.
The official didn’t say whether or not the time the lads spent in Turkey was believed to have any connection to planning or getting ready for the assault, however stated Turkish safety providers assessed that the lads had turn out to be radicalized earlier than arriving in Turkey. The 2 males have been from Tajikistan, however have been residing in Russia as migrant staff.
The opposite suspect, Shams al-Din Faridouni, entered Turkey from Russia on February 20 and instructed Turkish officers that he made the journey as a result of his Russian visa had expired and he needed to go away the nation, the official stated. The official stated he stayed in a lodge for six days in late February, and posted pictures on social media throughout that interval that seemed to be at a historic mosque in Istanbul in the identical space the place Rashabalizuda stayed.
Mr. Faridoni returned to Moscow on March 2 on the identical flight as Mr. Rashabalizoda. The official stated the 2 males traveled freely between Russia and Turkey as a result of neither was topic to an arrest warrant.
Regardless of being a member of NATO, Turkey maintained good relations with Russia all through the conflict in Ukraine. There are a number of direct flights day by day between Russia and Turkey.
On the peak of ISIS’s management in Iraq and Syria, the terrorist group carried out a number of lethal assaults inside Turkey, however lately such assaults have turn out to be uncommon, and Turkish safety providers typically announce their efforts to disrupt terrorist networks.
