Main suspected in Istanbul club attack entered Turkey via Syria: Hurriyet

The Daesh-affiliated terrorist, who slew 39 people at an upscale Istanbul nightclub hours into the New Year, had reportedly entered Turkey via Syrian soil.

Turkey’s Hürriyet Daily News said fresh details show the would-be attacker had settled down together with his wife and two children in the west-central Turkish province of Konya after arriving from neighboring Syria in November.

CCTV footage obtained by a Turkish news agency showed the suspect walking into a bus terminal in the province’s capital of the same name last month.

Early on Sunday, the unidentified assailant stormed the Reina nightclub, where some 700 people were celebrating New Year. Nearly 70 people were also injured in the shooting spree, which was later claimed by the Takfiri Daesh terror group.

Turkish authorities have made more than a dozen arrests in connection with the bloody assault, but the main suspect remains at large. Most of the detainees are Uzbek and Kyrgyz citizens, the paper wrote.

The assailant’s family members, whose identities have not been released, are also in police custody, according to Hurriyet.