Deutsche Welle quotes Rafik Hariri Center Resident Senior Fellow Aaron Stein on how the ISIS Istanbul attack shows how the organization is increasing its network inside Turkey:
“It shows that there is still an Islamic State network inside of Turkey, that these men are able to take advantage of when they are transiting from Syria to Turkey, and then trying to get to other places within Turkey,” Atlantic Council Senior Researcher Aaron Stein told Deutsche Welle. “It also shows how difficult it is track these people, and to know the exact backgrounds within this huge flux of people.”
Several have questioned whether German nationals—who made up at least eight of the ten reported dead after the attacks, and constitute the highest percentage of foreign tourists in Turkey— were specifically targeted during the attacks.
“That area of Sultanahmet is popular with all sorts of tourists,” Atlantic Council Senior Researcher Aaron Stein told DW. “I don’t think any one group was targeted outside of foreigners in general. I would say that a German tour group got extremely unlucky yesterday.”