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AKP deputy, pro-Erdoğan journalists blame US for nightclub attack

No details have yet emerged on the perpetrator of an armed attack that killed at least 39 people at a popular İstanbul nightclub in the early hours of New Year’s Day, but a deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) blamed the Obama administration for the massacre while several pro-government journalists also accused the US on social media.

Deputy Şamil Tayyar wrote o0n his Twitter account that there will be no peace for Turkey until Obama leaves office and urged a close watch of all US missions in Turkey as well as their “collaborators.”

“Whoever the hitman, Reina attack is a CIA action. FULLSTOP,” tweeted Şamil Tayyar, who has about 900K followers, on Monday, after the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attack.

In addition to Tayyar, several pro-government social media users and journalists put the blame on the US and its CIA for the terrorist attacks.

A reporter for Islamist paper Diriliş Postası, Sabri İşbilen, wrote that the order for the Reina nightclub attack surely came from the US. He argued that the US would not inform Turkey about such an attack as its goal is to drag Turkey into a civil war.

 

On Dec. 22 the US Embassy in Ankara had issued a security warning. Following the attack on New Year’s Day, the owner of the targeted Reina nightclub, Mehmet Koçarslan, claimed that due to “American intelligence,” Turkish security units had been taking measures for the last 10 days around the club.

In a new statement released on Sunday, the US Embassy in Ankara said that ‎contrary to rumors circulating on social media, the US government had no information about threats to specific entertainment venues, including the Reina Club, and that ‎the US government did not warn Americans to stay away from specific venues or neighborhoods.

 

Despite the statement, the anti-American sentiment among pro-government circles is running high. Yeni Şafak reporter Yılmaz Bilgen said the CIA turned “Christmas” into a bloodbath, in apparent confusion of New Year’s Day with Christmas, a mistake commonly made in Turkey.

 

Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief of Güneş daily, Turgay Güler, directly targeted journalist Amberin Zaman and actor Memet Ali Alabora for the Reina attack. Güler, who frequently travels on President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s private plane, argued that those two named planned the attack. Güler also named the US as the perpetrator of the nightclub attack.

 

The death toll has risen to 39, among them 15 foreign nationals, in an armed attack on a popular nightclub in the early hours of New Year’s Day in the Ortaköy district of İstanbul, according to Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu.

Twenty of the victims have been identified thus far, and police are continuing to search for the assailant.

Sixty-nine people were injured, with four in critical condition, Health Minister Recep Akdağ announced.

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