Istanbul Nightclub Shooting Scars Turkey
This past New Year’s Eve, there was a shooting at a nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey. 69 people were wounded and 39 were killed. Of the 69 wounded, several were left in critical condition. Only twenty-one dead were identified. Of the 21 dead, 16 were determined to be of foreign nationality, with the remaining five being Turkish. Both Turkey and the United States have called it a terrorist attack. After the shooting, twelve suspects were taken into custody, and apprehending the shooter became a top priority.
On January 17th, Governor Vasip Sahin of Istanbul announced that a suspect named Abdulgadir Masharipov confessed to committing the New Year’s shooting. Masharipov is from Uzbekistan and spent his educational years in Afghanistan.
The exact events of the attack are unclear to police at this time. Police do know that the attacker shot a police officer who was guarding the entrance, and then went in to shoot civilians. Some witness accounts suggest the presence of multiple attackers. The bar at which the attack took place was in a highly populated area.
Prior to the New Year’s Eve shooting, Turkey had been subject to multiple attacks, which caused several Turkish citizens to stay home on New Year’s Eve. ISIS has claimed responsibility for several of these attacks, stating them to be acts of revenge against Turkey for the country’s attempts to push back the Islamic State’s forces in Syria. There are reportedly increasing tensions between the extremist group and Turkey for killing Muslims via air strikes and mortar attacks. In August of 2016, Turkish forces started a campaign against the Jihadist movement and since then have lead several airstrikes. While combatting this, Turkey has played a large role in helping negotiate peace treaties between the Syrian government and groups of moderate rebels.
TBLS discipuli had, overall, negative responses to the tragedy. Many discipuli are astonished by the recent slew of tragedies. “I just think in general too many awful things are happening in the world. I think too many things are happening too fast for me to have an opinion on them,” said Eva Schenk, Class III, when asked about the events in Turkey.
Others felt that ISIS was being particularly hypocritical. Noor Al-Muzahid, Class IV, felt that the Islamic State’s reasoning for the attack–that Turkish soldiers had killed Muslims in Syria–was hypocritical, saying, “I don’t believe it was done in the name of Islam. Why would ISIS attack a notable Islamic country and kill innocent Muslims?”
Regarding America’s involvement, Class IV discipulus Quentin Livingston felt that “We [America] as a nation need to be harder on terrorism.”
Quentin was not the only discipulus who felt that America was not contributing enough. One Class IV discipula, Sierra Parris, responded to Trump’s recent actions and said, “This is what Trump needs to be focused on, not banning immigrants from seven countries that have no history of terrorism.”