A disgusted President Obama and his Turkish counterpart took aim at ISIS on Wednesday following the attack by suicide bombers at Istanbul’s airport that killed 42 people and wounded at least 239 others.
Obama described the strike on the bustling international terminal as “an indication of how little these vicious organizations have to offer beyond killing innocents.”
Islamic State militants and their supporters have murdered at least 1,515 people in terrorist attacks beyond their stomping grounds in Iraq and Syria since 2014. The attacks have spanned the globe, with the group’s operatives and lone wolves they’ve inspired targeting nightclubs, restaurants, airplanes, hotels and subway stations.
Obama called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “to reaffirm our strong commitment to partner with Turkey, with NATO, with the broad-based alliance that we have structured around the world to fight [ISIS].”
CIA Director John Brennan said the attack — the sixth in Istanbul this year including those by Kurdish separatists — bore the hallmarks of an ISIS operation and warned Americans that the terror group is planning similar bloodshed inside the US.
“I am worried from the standpoint of an intelligence professional who looks at the capabilities of [ISIS] . . . and their determination to kill as many as people as possible and to carry out attacks abroad,” Brennan told Yahoo News.
Turkish officials said the three suicide bombers who carried out the slaughter Tuesday arrived at the arrivals hall terminal by taxi. The first attacker walked into the terminal and opened fire before blowing himself up, officials said.
A second bomber headed upstairs to departures and detonated explosives, while a third assailment waited outside, finally blowing himself up as panicked travelers poured out of the airport, according to officials.
Videos of the carnage show the terrifying moments when explosions rocked the airport’s international terminal.
In one, people can be seen fleeing from a blast when one woman falls, gets up and struggles to continue running. Two women behind her slip and fall during the mayhem as smoke fills the space.
An officer who was seen in one video gunning down a suicide bomber before fleeing was identified by local media as Yasin Durna. He’s in stable condition after having his spleen removed.
Two honeymooners told a harrowing tale of survival, saying they were getting ready to board a plane back to New York City when they came “face to face” with one of the gunmen as he sprayed bullets inside the terminal.
“We barely made it,” Iraqi-American reporter and activist Steven Nabil tweeted. Before bullets rang out, Nabil’s wife was sitting at a cafe downstairs while Nabil went upstairs for pizza. “I heard shots and ran fast toward her,” Nabil tweeted.
His wife was injured, but they survived the 10 p.m. massacre by hiding out in a closet inside a hair salon for a tense 45 minutes. “The 45 minutes we were sitting ducks waiting to find out who will open the door,” he said.
Warning: Graphic images
No Americans died in the attack, but the 42 fatalities include 13 non-Turks.
The ISIS-operated Amaq News Agency made no mention of the attack but posted an infographic celebrating two years since announcing its “caliphate.”
Since then, the group has lured supporters through social media, officials said.
“They reach out to disenfranchised people who live on the fringes of society to brainwash them,” a US counterterrorism official said.
Additional reporting by Natalie Musumeci and Sophia Rosenbaum