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The Grand Turk
Istanbul Airport Attack Suspects on Trial over Terror
2017-11-14
[AnNahar] Forty-six suspects -- one third of them Russian nationals -- went on trial Monday in connection with last year's triple suicide kaboom of Istanbul's main airport, an attack that killed 45 people.

They are accused of "attempting to destroy the constitutional order" and "murder", state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

They are also charged with "membership of an armed terror group" and "forming and running a terror group," said the indictment. The grave offenses mean a potential record jail term -- up to 3,342 years -- if convicted.

Anadolu said 42 of the accused, who had been under arrest, appeared in court at Silivri, outside Istanbul, in a hearing due to last four days. The other four suspects remain on the lam.

Sixteen of the accused are Russian nationals and the others are Chechen, Tunisian, Egyptian, Algerian, Syrian and Ottoman Turkish.

Those killed in the suicide kabooms at Ataturk Airport on June 28, 2016, included 19 foreigners and it was one of the worst attacks to rock The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
's biggest city that year.

No group has grabbed credit for the attack but Turkey says the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group was behind the airport blasts. The court indictment also said IS "targeted the Ottoman Turkish republic."

Two of the three assailants in the massacre were identified as Rakim Bulgarov and Vadim Osmanov, according to court papers which did not identify the third attacker.

They are believed to be from Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and entered Turkey from Syria's Raqa, IS's then de-facto capital, a month before the airport atrocities.

Ottoman Turkish media had previously identified the man who organized the attack as Akhmed Chatayev, the Chechen leader of an IS cell in Istanbul who reportedly found accommodation for the bombers.

The attackers had scouted the airport three times, on June 3, 8 and 23, according to the indictment.
Link


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Abdulla the Caucasian threatens Azerbaijan in popular Daesh video
2016-07-27
[VOA] He calls himself Abdulla the Caucasian. With fair skin, red hair, a long beard and gold-toothed smile, Abdulla speaks Azerbaijani during the half-hour long Daesh propaganda video. His monologue has been translated into Russian, with subtitles running across the screen. He promises hell on Earth to Azerbaijan's government and its Muslim leaders who oppose Daesh.

The video is different from those usually produced by Daesh's Russian-language propaganda unit. Instead of being a long speech by a well-known figure, or presentations by a group of notable jihadis, this one gives an individual narrative with an accompanying visual presentation.

In scene after scene, the camera follows him as he shoots at enemy positions using various automatic weapons; he rides a motorcycle through battle-ravaged neighborhoods, passing the unburied bodies of Daesh victims; he checks the ID's of the freshly-killed infidels brought to him by his subordinates; he pays a courtesy visit to an elderly local woman; he steps on the petrified skull of a defeated enemy, while promising a place in paradise to those who join Daesh. The video delivers a simple message: Back home I was a nobody; here I am a warlord.

It has become one of the most popular propaganda videos ever produced by Daesh's Russian-language unit. It is worth noting that Vadim Osmanov, one of the bombers at Istanbul's Atatürk Airport, was a Lezgin – the same Sunni ethnic group to which Abdulla the Caucasian belongs.
Link


The Grand Turk
Istanbul airport attack organizer a known wolf
2016-07-02
[IsraelTimes] The suicide kaboomers who launched the deadly Istanbul airport assault were planning to take dozens of passengers hostage, Turkish media reported Friday, as two of the bombers were identified.

State-run news agency Anadolu said 24 people were tossed into the calaboose in Istanbul in a string of raids over the attack, including 15 foreigners.

Citing a prosecution source, the agency named two of the attackers as Rakim Bulgarov and Vadim Osmanov, without giving their nationalities.

Officials had previously said the three bombers were a Russian, an Uzbek and a Kyrgyz national.

Police had also found a damaged laptop in a dustbin near an Istanbul apartment used by the attackers and were trying to retrieve information from it, Anadolu added.

‘Number one enemy’
Turkish media identified the strike’s organizer as Akhmed Chatayev, the Chechen leader of an IS cell in Istanbul who reportedly found accommodation for the bombers.

Chatayev allegedly organized two deadly bombings this year in the heart of the city’s Sultanahmet tourist district and the busy Istiklal shopping street, the Hurriyet newspaper said.

Michael McCaul, chairman of the US House Committee on Homeland Security, described Chatayev as "probably the number one enemy in the Northern Caucasus region of Russia."

"He’s travelled to Syria on many occasions and became one of the top lieutenants for the minister of war for ISIS operations," McCaul told CNN.

Swedish court documents seen by AFP showed the 36-year-old had been sentenced to 16 months in jail there in 2008 for arms trafficking, after which he would be deported.

He was granted political asylum in Austria in 2003.

The pro-government Sabah newspaper reported that the attackers scouted the scene and planned to take dozens of passengers hostage inside before carrying out a massacre.

But they began the assault early after attracting suspicion, Sabah said.

CCTV images released by police show the three alleged attackers arriving, wearing dark coats over their boom jackets -- clothing that was much too heavy for a hot summer night.

More images show a plainclothes police officer confronting one of the men and asking to see his identification. The attacker pulls out a gun and shoots him.
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