ISIL may have attacked Reina with two militants: Report
ISTANBUL
Intelligence experts have investigated footage of the attack and have been considering indications that two militants might have attacked the nightclub, daily Karar reported on Jan. 5.
According to footage obtained from Istanbul’s Zeytinburnu district in which an alleged militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is seen leaving for Ortaköy to conducted the attack in the early hours of the new year, the assailant is seen wearing light-colored trousers with pockets. However, the assailant is seen wearing dark-colored and skinny trousers when entering the nightclub to stage the attack, which claimed a total of 39 lives and wounded 65 others.
In a third piece of footage taken inside Reina, the assailant is again seen wearing light-colored trousers with pockets. Subsequent footage taken from a nearby security camera shows the attacker escaping from the scene wearing the same dark-colored and skinny trousers.
It has previously been said the attacker changed his clothes while inside the club in order to escape among the wounded without being noticed. All four pieces of footage starting from Zeytinburnu until the end of the attack fit each other, prompting authorities to think that another militant might have been involved in the attack. Officials are considering whether a second militant entered Reina before the attack took place and that one of the militants escaped by sea, while the other walked out the door.
Meanwhile, it was determined that a selfie video allegedly taken in Taksim ahead of the attack by the main assailant was initially shared on an ISIL Telegram channel consisting of 700 militants. The militants reportedly retracted the video from the jihadist organization’s channel after police determined that a second attacker might be involved. The video might have been taken in order to make authorities believe only one attacker was involved in the attack and divert the investigation in that direction, according to daily Karar.
The person seen in the selfie allegedly escaped to Syria after the attack, but officials are evaluating the fact that it was also done to divert security forces from searching addresses inside Turkey. According to the daily, the two possible militants are still inside Turkey.
Witness testimonies that surfaced after the attack claimed that there were more at least two militants inside the nightclub. Sinem Uyanık, who survived without injuries, said two people were shooting inside Reina.
Another witness told police that the revelers inside were caught in a crossfire and that militants killed people with shots to the head. In addition, a waiter working at Reina also claimed that two people were firing on those inside.