Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Saturday, December 31, 2016

BREAKING: What we know from the Istanbul 'Santa' nightclub attack'


by Alara Berrak and Biodun Iginla, France24,  Istanbul


    © AFP / by Stuart WILLIAMS | Turkish special force police officers and ambulances are seen at the site of an armed attack January 1, 2017 in Istanbul

    ISTANBUL  - 
    At least 35 were killed and 40 hurt Sunday when gunmen reportedly wearing Santa outfits stormed a popular Istanbul nightclub and sprayed bullets at revellers celebrating the New Year.
    Here is what we know about the attack, the latest to rock Turkey in a bloody 2016.
    - The venue -
    The attack took place at the swanky Reina nightclub on the European side of the city. There were reportedly as many as 700 people dancing to celebrate the New Year, which chimed in barely an hour before the attack.
    Situated in the Ortakoy district of Istanbul, the club is known as one of the most elite nightspots in the city and it is notoriously hard to get past the bouncers, who seek out only the best dressed.
    Television pictures showed shellshocked revellers dressed up to the nines -- men in suits and women in cocktail dresses -- emerging dazed from the scene.
    The attack sparked mass panic, with some diving into the Bosphorus Strait between Europe and Asia to escape the bullets. Rescuers were battling to salvage them to safety.
    - The attack -
    At least one gunman reportedly dressed as Santa burst into the nightclub, spraying bullets at random.
    According to some witnesses cited by the Dogan news agency, the attackers were "speaking Arabic".
    The city's governor wasted no time as branding the bloodshed a "terror attack", the latest to strike Turkey after a wave of assaults by Islamic State jihadists as well as Kurdish militants.
    According to the NTV broadcaster, special forces officers were still searching the premises.
    - Terror in Turkey -
    After a bloody 2016, the authorities were on their guard and at least 17,000 police officers were deployed in the city for the New Year festivities.
    Turkey had enduring bomb attacks at an airport, a suicide bombing at a wedding and an attack near a top football stadium this year.
    The attacks have been blamed either on Kurdish militants or the Islamic State jihadist extremist group.
    The Turkish army is waging a four-month incursion in Syria to oust the IS group and Kurdish militants from the border area.
    - The toll -
    At least 35 people died and a further 40 were being treated in local hospitals, the city's governor said.
    TV pictures showed ambulances ferrying the wounded from the scene as police cordoned off the area.

     
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    BREAKING: Two suicide bomb blasts kill at least two in Syria's Tartous: state TV, monitors

    Sun Jan 1, 2017 |  02H:01  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
    Two suicide bombers detonated their explosives, killing at least two security officers in the Syrian coastal city of Tartous, Syrian state television reported after midnight on Sunday.
    It said the officers were part of a security patrol that stopped the bombers, who then blew themselves up. Others were injured in the blasts, including civilians, state TV said. It gave no further details.
    British-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there had been explosions from suicide bombers in Tartous and that at least two people were killed.
    Tartous has not been targeted for several months, and has largely escaped the violence that has engulfed other areas of the country.
    The city is part of President Bashar al-Assad's coastal heartland.
    The incident took place as a fragile Russian and Turkish-backed ceasefire, welcomed by the United Nations, entered its third day with ongoing violations including clashes and air raids.
    A series of bombings in May killed scores of people in Tartous and another city on the Mediterranean coast near government-controlled territory that hosts Russian military bases.

    Russia supports Assad in the nearly six-year conflict, which has killed more than 300,000 people and made more than 11 million homeless.
    Rebels suffered a major defeat being driven out of their last major urban stronghold in Aleppo this month.
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    Deadly bomb blasts rip through Baghdad market


    © Sabah Arar, AFP | The aftermath of a double bomb attack in a busy market area in Baghdad's central al-Sinaq neighbourhood on December 31, 2016.
    Latest update : 2017 Jan 1  01H:42  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

    by Sunita Kureishi and Biodun Iginla, France24, Baghdad

    Two bombs exploded at a busy market in central Baghdad on Saturday killing at least 28 people and wounding more than 50 others, security officials and medics said. The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the attack.

    The blasts took place early Saturday morning in al-Sinaq, a busy market selling car accessories, food and clothes as well as agricultural seeds and machinery.
    Details were sketchy in the immediate aftermath. An Interior Ministry official initially said that one of the blasts had been triggered by a planted explosive, but police later concluded that both explosions were caused by suicide bombers.
    BOMB BLAST STRIKES BAGHDAD MARKET
    The IS group later claimed responsibility for the attacks in a statement posted by its Aamaq news agency, confirming that the blasts came from a pair of suicide bombers.
    An AFP photographer said torn clothes and mangled iron were strewn across the ground in pools of blood at the site of the wreckage near Rasheed street, one of the main thoroughfares in Baghdad.
    "Many of the victims were people from the spare parts shops in the area, they were gathered near a cart selling breakfast when the explosions went off," Ibrahim Mohammed Ali, who owns a nearby shop, told the news agency.
    IS under pressure
    Speaking from Baghdad, Global Radio News correspondent Saif Al-Hiali told FRANCE 24 that “security was heightened significantly” within the city in preparation for the New Year, with key streets on lockdown.
    He noted that the attacks had followed the latest offensive against Mosul by Iraqi special forces.
    “The military campaign is entering its third month now and the Islamic State group are known to resort to these tactics – attacking areas well outside their territory – whenever they’ve been pressured by advancing forces,” Al-Hiali said.
    Diversionary attacks
    Baghdad has been on high alert since the start of an offensive to drive the IS group out of the northern city of Mosul, Iraq's largest military operation in years.
    The jihadist outift has lost much of the northern and western territory it seized in 2014 and is now resisting the offensive in Mosul, its last major stronghold in Iraq.
    It has tried to hit back with major diversionary attacks on other targets across the country but has had little success in Baghdad.
    Saturday's twin bombings were the deadliest in the capital since the start of the Mosul offensive.
    At least 34 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a funeral tent in Baghdad's Shaab area on October 15.


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