From inside the suspect’s house, Rudaw’s Rawin Sterk said, “The Turkish police had rented an apartment next to the attacker’s apartment before he was arrested last night.
“The police were watching him for several days and they wanted to arrest all those who were with him.”
The Turkish police declared they had arrested the suspect, identified as Abdulkadir Masharipov, in Istanbul's Esenyurt district during a massive police operation late Monday. Additionally, police detained four other people, including a man of Kyrgyz origin and three women from Egypt, Senegal and Somalia.
Masharipov is an Uzbek national, who Turkish officials have linked to ISIS and claimed he received training in Afghanistan.
Rudaw cameras captured Masharipov’s house that consists of two rooms and a hall.
“The apartment is so dirty and it is said that it was rented by an Iraqi person,” a downstairs neighbor told Rudaw. “The attacker had rented the apartment three months ago.”
Three Kurdish youth were among the dozens of people who were killed in the armed attack which ISIS claimed responsibility for on Istanbul’s Reina nightclub.
As many as 700 people were inside the nightclub when the attack began.
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