EGN NEWS DESK
Two males accused within the terrorist assault on a Moscow live performance corridor frolicked in Istanbul simply weeks earlier than the assault, a senior Turkish safety official mentioned on Tuesday, including that the shortness of the lads’s visits steered that they’d not been radicalized in Turkey.
The data got here on the identical day that the Turkish Interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, wrote on the platform X that the Turkish safety companies had caught 147 individuals alleged to have connections to the Islamic State since final June.
Mr. Yerlikaya didn’t say what number of of these suspects had been apprehended because the live performance corridor assault in Moscow final week or whether or not any of these beforehand arrested had been believed to have hyperlinks to that assault. The Islamic State has claimed duty for the assault.
Speaking on situation of anonymity due to authorities protocols, the senior safety official mentioned that one of many assault suspects who traveled to Turkey, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, arrived in Istanbul on Jan. 5 and spent 16 days in a resort within the metropolis’s Fatih District. He left for Moscow on March 2, the official mentioned.
The official didn’t say whether or not the lads’s time in Turkey was believed to have any connection to the planning or preparation for the assault, however mentioned that Turkey’s safety companies had assessed that the lads had been radicalized earlier than arriving in Turkey. Both males had been from Tajikistan, however had been dwelling in Russia as migrant laborers.
Another suspect, Shamsidin Fariduni, entered Turkey from Russia on Feb. 20 and advised 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 mentioned. He stayed in a resort for six days in late February and posted footage on social media throughout that point that gave the impression to be at a historic Istanbul mosque in the identical district the place Mr. Rachabalizoda had stayed, the official mentioned.
Mr. Fariduni returned to Moscow on March 2 on the identical flight as Mr. Rachabalizoda. Both males had traveled freely between Russia and Turkey as a result of neither was topic to an arrest warrant, the official mentioned.
Despite being a member of NATO, Turkey has maintained good relations with Russia all through the warfare in Ukraine. There are a number of direct flights each day between Russia and Turkey.
At the peak of the Islamic State’s management in Iraq and Syria, the fear group carried out a number of lethal assaults inside Turkey, however lately such assaults have grow to be uncommon and the Turkish safety companies often publicize their efforts to disrupt terrorist networks.
