The suspect was detained in Istanbul late Tuesday, Interior Minister Efkan Ala said during a news conference with his visiting German counterpart. He didn’t provide further details. Turkish media reports said police had raided a home in an affluent neighborhood of Istanbul, detaining one woman suspected of having links to the Islamic State group, although it wasn’t clear if she was the suspect Mr. Ala was referring to.
On Wednesday, Turkish police also arrested 13 suspected Islamic State militants, including three Russian nationals, a day after the bombing in Istanbul’s historic Sultanahmet district. The attack, which also wounded 15 other people, including Germans, a Norwegian man and a Peruvian woman, was the latest in a string of attacks by Islamic extremists targeting Westerners.
Turkish authorities identified the bomber as a Syrian born in 1988, who had recently entered Turkey. Turkish media, including newspapers close to the government, identified him as Nabil Fadli, and said he was born in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Ala said the suicide bomber wasn’t on any Turkish or international watch lists for Islamic State militants.
Officials initially said that at least eight Germans were among the dead in Tuesday’s explosion. On Wednesday, German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Sawsan Chebli said the number had risen to 10.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said there was no sign that Germans were specifically targeted.
“According to the investigations so far, there are no indications that the attack was directed specifically against Germans, so there can’t be any connection to our contribution to the fight against international terrorism,” Mr. de Maiziere said.
Germany committed Tornado reconnaissance jets to the military effort against the Islamic State group in Syria following the November attacks in Paris, and started flying missions from the Incirlik air base in Turkey last week. It also sent a tanker aircraft, as well as a frigate to help protect a French aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean. It hasn’t taken a direct combat role, however. Germany already was helping supply and train Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State in northern Iraq.
Mr. Ala urged Turkish citizens and foreign visitors to go about their daily lives, insisting that the country had taken “all necessary security precautions.” He said Turkey had detained as many as 220 Islamic State suspects in the week prior to the attack.
Mr. de Maiziere said: “I see no reason to refrain from traveling to Turkey.” He added there was no reason for people who are already there to break off their trips.
Top German and Turkish officials already were scheduled to meet in Berlin next week to discuss Europe’s migrant crisis, in which Turkey which borders both Syria and the European Union is a key player. Mr. de Maiziere said those talks will now also address “the determined fight against terrorism”.
“If the terrorists aimed to destroy or endanger the cooperation between partners, then they achieved the opposite,” Mr. de Maziere said. “Germany and Turkey are coming even closer together.”
The Russians were detained in the Mediterranean coastal city of Antalya, a popular destination for tourists, but it wasn’t clear if the arrests were directly linked to the Istanbul bombing. The state-run Anadolu Agency said the suspects were allegedly in contact with IS fighters in conflict zones and had provided logistical support to the group. Ten other people were detained in Turkey’s third largest city, Izmir, and in the central city of Konya.
Nearly 3,000 Russians, mostly from the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus, are believed to have gone to fight alongside Islamic State militants in Syria. Families of Islamic State recruits and human rights activists in the Caucasus have described Turkey as the main gateway to Syria for Russian fighters. Some IS fighters of Russian origin are believed to have left the Islamic State to settle in Turkey, families say.
Tuesday’s blast just steps from the historic Blue Mosque was the first by Islamic State to target Turkey’s vital tourism sector, although the militants have struck with deadly effect elsewhere in the country.
The impact of Tuesday’s attack, while not as deadly as two others last year, was particularly far-reaching because it struck at Turkey’s $30 billion tourism industry, which has already suffered from a steep decline in Russian visitors since Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border in November.
Many of the victims appeared to be German couples.
The State government in Brandenburg said a couple aged 71 and 73 from Falkensee, outside Berlin, were killed, while authorities in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate say a couple from there were killed the husband was 61 and the wife 59. In addition, a 73-year-old man from the region was among the dead while his wife was seriously injured. The western State of Hesse said a 67-year-old man from that region was killed and his 50-year-old wife wounded.
Turkish newspapers printed words of condolence in German.
“With you in our hearts,” the Haber Turk newspaper read. “Your pain is our pain” Vatan newspaper said.
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