an enormous targt for isis. which is a belated acknowledgment given that turkey suffered the most number of attacks. in 2014 they had something like half a dozen or seven isis attacks and the turkish government previously wanted to downplay this because the focus must have been foreign policy efforts and military efforts against the kurdish separatists insurgency that it has been fighting for 40 years. now it looks like this is a very nasty case of blow back. all right, terrible situation. michael weiss, we appreciate your expertise on that. thank you so much. sara is in istanbul. are you learning anything more about the direction of this investigation? no, but we are learning more about the victims. now, we know that 24 of the 39 people killed here at this nightclub are foreign nationals. so, this was a place that gives you some idea that was really popular with people who had come
has been using every terrorist attack in turkey as a pretext to launch a crackdown on any other group that he sees as his own political opposition. some of these attacks that seem to have the indicators of isis being behind them he s blamed on kurdish separatists. one of the most recent attacks, earlier in december that was a bombing that struck mostly police officers outside of a stadium in central istanbul and killed about 38 police officers and wounded some 150 more, erdogan went ahead and already in the last few days blamed it on a social movement that fell out of the favor with, and for a tula gulen is actually now in exile in the united states, erdogan has blamed all sorts of attacks and really political inconveniences on on fatula
off-duty turkish policeman. twin bombing attacks, august 20th a bomb attack on a wedding party. at least 30 people dead in that situation. in july, july 30th we had 35 kurdish fighters who tried to storm a military base killed by the turkish army there in the area. what is that sense of you were saying it s very different with good reason. what is this reason, if different at all based on your experience say about where this attack sits? what is that background? reporter: this attack will have a chilling effect on the constituent. it is an attack on the elite. it is an attack on the party culture of istanbul. istanbul has a very it s a muslim country, but it has a
jihadist who s carrying this out. as for motivation, he went onto describe that this was pay back for russia s involvement, he says don t forget aleppo and syria. you will not taste security if our region is not safe and he started shouting to some of the people in the room. journalists and others gathered for this event telling them to stand back and pointing his weapon at them. then he went onto say, death can only take me out of here. after that he left the exhibit hall himself and smashed some paintings and went on some photograph and went up to the second floor and engaged in about a 15 minute gun battle with turkish police who then killed him. richard, turkey, had a rough year, they had attacks from kurdish separatists and attack at the airport which isis claimed responsibility for and an attempted presidential coo.
they have been posting videos on isis websites showing the spoils of war including the syrian military hardware left over by the fleeing syrian military. isis has been able to at least strike a victory in this battle. a very symbolic battle because of the ancient ruins known around the world. to turkey, the twin bombings in istanbul killed 44 people according to the health minister. what is the country doing in order to make sure it doesn t happen again and is this part of an up tick in violence in the country? the turkish government is fighting a war of insurgency or war on terror being led according to them by kurdish separatists. the deputy prime minister said it was the pkk behind this latest twin suicide bombing that took place on friday evening. there are reports that we haven t independently verified that the turkish air force has