ISTANBUL — Police increased security around Istanbul on Wednesday and detained some 20 people with suspected links to the deadly New Year’s Eve nightclub attack as the hunt for the gunman stretched into a fourth day.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the gunman — who killed 39 people during New Year’s celebrations at the Reina club before reportedly escaping in a taxi — had been identified, but did not name him.
Police set up checkpoints across Istanbul as security levels remained high. They stopped cars and taxis, with passengers and drivers holding up their identifications while officers inspected the vehicles.
The city has been on edge since the attack on the upscale club popular with local celebrities, and on Wednesday residents beat up a man said to resemble the wanted gunman before handing him over to police, the Dogan news agency reported.
Some 20 people, including 11 women, were taken into custody in police raids in the Aegean port city of Izmir, the state-run Anadolu agency said.
The suspects, from the largely Muslim Russian republic of Dagestan, as well as members of China’s Muslim Uighur minority and from Syria, were believed to have lived with the gunman in an alleged Islamic State cell house in the central Turkish city of Konya, the agency reported. Some 20 children who were with the detainees were also taken to a police station.
At least 16 people were previously detained in connection with the massacre.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in reprisal for Turkish military operations against IS in northern Syria. Of those killed, 27 were foreigners — many from the Middle East.
In his first public address to the nation since the killings, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the attack aimed to set Turks against each other and deepen fault lines, but warned the country would not fall “for this game.”
His comments followed a campaign before the attack by some ruling party supporters and pro-Islamic groups who warned against New Year’s celebrations they depicted as Western or Christian traditions, as well as some social media postings that seemed to support the attack on the New Year’s revelers.
The campaign and social media postings were condemned by more secular-minded Turks who said their lifestyles were being threatened.
The government has said authorities were taking measures against social media accounts that allegedly “support terrorism and foster divisiveness in society.”
The pro-government Sabah newspaper identified the suspect as a Kyrgyz national who was born in 1988. It said he had been in contact with a chief IS operative in Istanbul whose aide — a Tajik national — was among those in custody.
