The Turkish nightclub massacre that ended with 39 people dead on New Year’s Day was engineered by an “intelligence organization,” a top government official revealed Monday.
A man believed to be the gunman who killed dozens at an Istanbul nightclub.APISIS had earlier claimed responsibility for the slaughter at the upscale Reina nightclub in Istanbul in retaliation against Turkey for sending its military to fight the terror group in Syria, The Daily Mail reported.
But new information has now emerged from Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, who said “it appears the Reina attack is not just a terrorist organization’s act, but there was also an intelligence organization involved. It was an extremely planned and organized act.”
Kurtulmus stopped short of identifying the intelligence group.
Meanwhile, Turkish investigators have arrested two accomplices in connection with the club attack, the Daily Mail said.
Omar Asim and Abuliezi Abuduhamiti were charged with “being members of a terrorist organization,” “being accomplices to the murder of 39 people” and “purchasing unlicensed firearms,” according to The Mail.
An eyewitness allegedly spotted Asim hanging out with the gunman, who goes by the name Ebu Muhammed Horasani and is still at large, The Mail said. Horasani is believed to be of Turkic Uighur origin and from Eastern or Central Asia.
Turkish authorities were probing whether a sleeper cell of Central Asian jihadists was also behind the attack.
Horasani was caught on surveillance video shooting his way into the club on New Year’s.
Twenty-seven of the 39 killed in the attack were foreigners from countries including Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iraq and Morocco.












