The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for an attack on a Roman Catholic church in Istanbul during a Sunday Mass. One person was shot to death.
The extremist group said in a statement late Sunday on Aamaq, the media arm of the militant group, that it “attacked a gathering of Christian unbelievers during their polytheistic ceremony” inside the Santa Maria Church in the Buyukdere neighborhood in Istanbul.
The 52-year-old man who was shot and killed in the attack, Tuncer Cihan, “was … a person who had done nothing wrong. In fact, he wasn’t even Christian, he was Alevi,” the church’s lawyer, Avsin Hatipoglu, told The Associated Press.
Turkey’s Alevi community is one of the country’s largest religious minorities. Alevis identify as Muslims, though their practice is fundamentally different from Islam’s two major branches, Sunni and Shiite.
Hatipoglu said authorities would be asked to increase security in the area.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said shortly before midnight that two men he described as members of the Islamic State group had been arrested. One is from Tajikistan and the other from Russia, he said.
ISTANBUL TERROR ATTACK
Turkish media has released images showing the two men wearing ski masks who are suspected of shooting Catholics as they attended Mass this morning, with at least one death confirmed pic.twitter.com/VOOZulgYfX
— Catholic Arena (@CatholicArena) January 28, 2024
Yerlikaya said police raided 30 locations and detained suspects with alleged links to the shooting.
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DHA, a private news agency, reported that 51 people were detained during the police raids, including 23 who were sent to holding centers awaiting deportation.
It also said the two suspects drove a car brought from Poland to Istanbul a year ago, and it hadn’t been used until the day of the shooting. The attackers panicked and ran away after the weapon jammed, DHA reported.
Istanbul police didn’t immediately respond to a request for information.
Still reeling from the attack, the church clergy of Santa Maria opened their doors to the media on Monday, saying Mass would resume on Thursday.
Pews and walls could be seen peppered with bullet holes. A bouquet was left where Cihan was killed.
Sukru Genc, mayor of Sariyer district where the attack took place, told the newspaper Birgun that the gunmen fled when their weapon jammed after firing two rounds.
Genc said people attending Mass included Polish Consul General Witold Lesniak and his family, all unharmed in the attack.
On Jan. 3, 25 suspected Islamic State members were arrested across Turkey and accused of plotting attacks on churches and synagogues, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.
The Islamic State has not previously targeted places of worship in Turkey but has carried out a string of deadly attacks in the country, including a shooting at an Istanbul nightclub in 2017 that killed 39 people and a 2015 bomb attack in Ankara that killed 109.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
