Turkey's Interior Ministry said on Monday that dozens of people were detained in the past week over suspected ties to the Daesh group. The ministry's announcement came after a gunman opened fire on New Year's revelers at an Istanbul nightclub, killing 39 people and wounded dozens of others. Daesh has claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement released Monday, the ministry said 147 people were detained after authorities determined "they were in contact with the Daesh terrorist organization." Of the detained, 25 people have been formally put under arrest. Meanwhile, Turkey's state news agency said 38 of the 39 victims of the New Year's attack on an Istanbul nightclub have been identified. The Anadolu news agency, citing unidentified Turkish justice ministry officials, says 11 those killed by a gunman who escaped were Turkish nationals and one was a Turkish-Belgium dual citizen. The report said seven victims were from Saudi Arabia; three were from Lebanon and Iraq each; two nationals were from Tunisia, India, Morocco and Jordan each. Kuwait, Canada, Israel, Syria and Russia each lost one citizen. Sixty-nine people were also wounded. Anadolu says one victim remains unidentified. Relatives of the victims and embassy personal were seen walking into an Istanbul morgue to claim the bodies of the deceased. Turkish media reports say that authorities believe that the Daesh group was behind the attack. Hurriyet and Karar newspaper reports Monday cited unnamed security officials saying that authorities have determined that the gunman who killed 39 people comes from a Central Asian nation and is believed to be either from Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan. Police had also established similarities with the high-casualty attack at Ataturk Airport in June and was investigating whether the same Daesh cell carried out both attacks. The gunman, who is still at large, killed a policeman and another man outside the Reina club in the early hours of 2017 before firing at people partying inside. Nearly two-thirds of the dead were foreigners, many from the Middle East. In a related development, Turkey's state-run news agency said that more than 100 Daesh targets in Syria were hit by Turkey and Russia in separate operations, a day after a deadly attack at a popular Istanbul nightclub during New Year's celebrations claimed by the group. Citing the Turkish Chief of General Staff's office, Anadolu Agency said Turkish jets struck eight Daesh group targets while tanks and artillery fired upon 103 targets near Al Bab, killing 22 extremists while destroying many structures. Anadolu added that Russian jets also attacked Daesh targets in Dayr Kak, eight kilometers (five miles) to the southwest of Al Bab. Turkey sent troops into neighboring northern Syria in August to lear a border area of IS militants and curb territorial advances by Syrian Kurdish forces.
