Announcement follows dawn raids on suspected Isis cells in Istanbul, where 16 people were detained, and Izmir 
 
 Three foreign nationals – a Russian, an Uzbek and a Kyrgyz – carried out the shooting and triple suicide bombing at Atatürk airport in Istanbul, Turkish officials have said, but questions remain over security shortcomings that allowed the attackers to breach several control points and kill 43 people. 
 
 The announcement, made to western and Turkish news agencies, came as Turkish police carried out raids against suspected Islamic State cells in Istanbul and the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, arresting a further three foreign nationals. 
 
 
 
 Turkish authorities, including the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, believe Isis was responsible for the attack on Europe’s third-busiest airport on Tuesday evening, the deadliest in a string of killings and explosions that have shaken the country this year. There has been no claim of responsibility. 
 
 Turkish police have identified one of the attackers as Osman Vadinov, a Chechen from Dagestan who reportedly entered Turkey on his Russian passport about a month ago. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest One of the suicide bomber at Istanbul Ataturk International Airport on the security cameras. Photograph: Depo Photos/REX/Shutterstock 
 
 Police said he had entered Turkey from Raqqa, the Isis stronghold in Syria, at least once before in 2015 and is suspected to have had links to jihadi cells inside Turkey. 
 
 The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper claimed that the man suspected of being the organiser of the attack was an Isis commander of Chechen origin called Akhmed Chatayev, described by the US Treasury Department as “the commander of the Yarmouk Battalion, a Chechen faction of [Isis].” 
 
 Chatayev is said to be responsible for the recruiting and training of Russian-speaking Isis militants and was added to the US government’s list of specially designated global terrorists in 2015. He is wanted by the Russian government. 
 
 The Turkish authorities have not confirmed that Chatayev is part of the ongoing investigation into the triple suicide bombing. 
 
 During dawn raids on Thursday in 16 different locations in Istanbul, security forces detained 16 people, including three foreigners, Turkish media reported. Late on Wednesday, police carried out a sweep of the flat the three attackers had rented out in the central Aksaray district of Istanbul, securing “digital data” and “documents linked to the criminal organisation”. 
 
 Police sources quoted in the Turkish media said the attackers had taken a taxi at 8.45pm local time from Aksaray to Atatürk airport. The driver described the attackers as calm and not at all stressed. 
 
 The assault on Atatürk airport, which reopened on Thursday, has also raised serious questions about security shortcomings in Turkey and the activity of Isis cells. 
 
 Private security personnel guarding the entrance and exit doors of the international departure terminal at the time of the attack said the assailants caught police officers inside the building off guard. 
 
 
 
 “The attackers had chosen the hour just after iftar [the evening meal at the end of each day’s Ramadan fast], so they were all caught unawares,” one security guard who wished to remain anonymous said. 
 
 “Many of the policemen were hiding when the shooter made his way across the departure hall towards the VIP lounge.” 
 
 His colleague added. “What kind of safety is this? I don’t feel safe here. In Brussels they closed down the airport for several days after the attack. Here they reopened immediately, as if nothing has happened. It’s all about profit for them. Nobody cares about the security.” 
 
 While it was one of the deadliest attacks so far, the Atatürk airport attack was by far not the only one – in a little over a year, 17 similar attacks all over the country have claimed almost 300 lives, and the government is under increasing pressure. 
 
 Speaking after the attacks, the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yildirim, said there had been no security flaws at the airport on Tuesday, a comment which drew the ire of opposition politicians and commentators. 
 
 
 
 Some critics have said the coordination between the various police departments and the National Intelligence Agency (MIT) was still insufficient, pointing to the fact that MIT had warned about a possible suicide bomb attack only weeks before the assault. 
 
 Nihat Ali Özcan, a counterterrorism expert, said that while there were things to be improved, no country could hope for absolute security. 
 
 “No country is entirely safe from such terrorist attacks,” he said. “Turkey is most certainly at a geographical disadvantage and Isis has managed to establish a network here and rally recruits to its cause. We are facing a massive security challenge.” 
 
 Turkey has long been accused of turning a blind eye to the Isis threat at its borders and inside the country, and Ankara has rejected military action against the group in Syria or Iraq. Even after Turkey joined the US-led military coalition and their fight against Isis in October 2014, it remained a rather hesitant member of the alliance. 
 
 However, after a string of deadly suicide attacks on Turkish soil, Turkey has intensified the crackdown on Isis cells at home, raiding safe houses and detaining hundreds, while carrying out cross-border artillery attacks on Isis targets in Syria. 
 
 Turkey has also tightened its borders with Syria and Iraq, substantially cutting down the numbers of foreign fighters and potential Isis recruits travelling through the country. Analysts say these policy changes prompted Isis to seek revenge on Ankara. 
 
 “All these factors brought about an important shift in Isis’s attitude towards Turkey,” Özcan said. “But after the government opened the Incirlik airbase to the anti-Isis alliance last year, the group openly declared war on Turkey. There will likely be more attacks like the one in Istanbul on Tuesday.” 
 
 Among the dead identified so far are 23 Turks. Six Saudis, two Iraqis, an Iranian, a Chinese national, a Jordanian, a Tunisian, an Uzbek and a Ukrainian were also killed in the attack, Turkish officials said. 
 
 Five of the Turkish dead were policemen, and others were tourism guides waiting for clients in the arrivals area, two who worked in ground services, and at least one taxi driver. 
 
 
 
 ||||| A worker wipes traces of blood from the wall of Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, Wednesday, June 29, 2016. Suicide attackers killed dozens and wounded more than 140 at Istanbul's busy Ataturk Airport late... (Associated Press) 
 
 ISTANBUL (AP) — It was an attack that echoed the carnage earlier this year at the Brussels airport, down to the taxi that carried the men to their target: Inciting panic and then taking lethal advantage, three suicide attackers unleashed a deadly tide of bullets and bombs at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, leaving 42 dead. 
 
 Authorities blamed the Islamic State group for the blood bath late Tuesday, a coordinated assault on one of the world's busiest airports and on a key NATO ally that plays a crucial role in the fight against the extremist group. 
 
 There was no immediate claim of responsibility by the militant group. 
 
 Although the attack took a heavy toll, the assailants were initially thwarted by the extensive security on the airport's perimeter, Turkish officials said. 
 
 "When the terrorists couldn't pass the regular security system, when they couldn't pass the scanners, police and security controls, they returned and took their weapons out of their suitcases and opened fire at random at the security check," Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said. 
 
 One attacker detonated his explosives downstairs at the arrivals terminal, one went upstairs and blew himself up in the departure hall, and the third waited outside for the fleeing crowd and caused the final lethal blast, two Turkish officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak about the investigation publicly. None of the attackers were Turks, a third official said. 
 
 As the chaos unfolded, terrified travelers were sent running first from one explosion and then another. Airport surveillance video showed a panicked crowd of people, some rolling suitcases behind them, stampeding down a corridor, looking fearfully over their shoulders. 
 
 Other surveillance footage posted on social media showed one explosion, a ball of fire that sent terrified passengers racing for cover. Another showed an attacker, felled by a gunshot from a security officer, blowing himself up seconds later. 
 
 Cihan Tunctas had just disembarked from a flight from Azerbaijan when he heard the sound of gunfire. 
 
 "Then the bomb exploded. We were at the exit and ... the roof collapsed on our heads," Tunctas said. The group tried to escape, but their path was blocked by the arrival of a second attacker. 
 
 "Two of the security guards noticed him. They walked toward him. Just as they were walking toward him, I turned that way. They just caught him and at that moment he detonated the bomb." 
 
 Investigators later found a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a handgun and two grenades on the bodies, according to the state-run Anadolu news service. Raids at two addresses also uncovered encrypted organizational documents and computer files, the news agency said. 
 
 Although the government quickly blamed the Islamic State, there was no immediate claim of responsibility by the extremist group, which did not mention the bloodshed on its social media sites Wednesday. However, an infographic released to celebrate the second anniversary of its self-proclaimed caliphate claimed to have "covert units" in Turkey and other countries. 
 
 Islamic State, however, rarely claims attacks in Turkey. One possible reason is a reluctance to be seen as killing fellow Muslims, said Anthony Skinner, director of the analyst group Verisk Maplecroft. Another is its desire to exploit the violent rift between Turkey and Kurdish rebels, he said. 
 
 "It very clearly meets Islamic State's strategic objectives to leave this ambiguity," Skinner said. 
 
 Yildirim, the Turkish prime minister, also suggested the attack could be linked to steps Ankara took Monday toward mending strained ties with Israel and Russia. Late Wednesday, he told the Turkish public the authorities were increasingly convinced that the Islamic State group, also known as Daesh, was responsible for the ghastly attack. 
 
 "Our thought that it is Daesh, continues to gain weight," Yildirim said. 
 
 A key partner in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group, Turkey faces an array of security threats from other groups as well, including ultra-left radicals and Kurdish rebels demanding greater autonomy in the restive southeast. 
 
 The country shares long, porous borders with both Syria and Iraq, where IS controls large pockets of territory, and the government has blamed IS for several major bombings over the past year, including in the capital Ankara, and on tourists in Istanbul. 
 
 "The reality is that Turkey is situated in a very vulnerable situation, geographically speaking," Skinner said. 
 
 Victims in Tuesday's attack included at least 13 foreigners and several people remained unidentified Wednesday. The Istanbul governor's office said more than 230 people were wounded and dozens remained in critical condition. 
 
 Among the dead was Muhammed Eymen Demirci, who had just landed a job on the airport's ground services crew after more than a year of unemployment: "I got the job bro!" the 25-year-old texted a friend in May. 
 
 He died while waiting for a bus after his shift. A childhood friend who had helped Demirci get the job was devastated. "He was such a friendly person, a man who fought for his ideals," Deniz Dogan told The Associated Press. "Now I wish he hadn't gotten the job." 
 
 "So, what can we think? We cannot think anything," said Ali Batur, whose brother also died. "A terror attack might happen everywhere, it does happen everywhere." 
 
 Dozens of anxious friends and relatives waited Wednesday outside Istanbul's Bakirkoy Hospital. 
 
 "You can hear that people are wailing here," said Serdar Tatlisu, a relative of a victim. "We cannot cope anymore, we can't just stay still. We need some kind of solution for whatever problem there is." 
 
 Funerals for some of the victims began Wednesday as Turkish authorities sought to put together an attack timeline, going through surveillance footage and interviewing witnesses. A Turkish court imposed a media ban on any information not officially released by the government. 
 
 The devastation at Istanbul's airport was a reminder of the March 22 attack on the Brussels airport, where two suicide bombings ripped through check-in counters, killing 16 people. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for that attack, as well as an explosion the same day at a Brussels subway station that killed 16 more people. 
 
 As dawn broke Wednesday, workers were removing debris from the Istanbul airport and mere hours after the terminal erupted into chaos, it reopened to flights. It took 12 days for flights to resume in Brussels, and more than two months for the terminal building to fully reopen. 
 
 Turkey has suffered a series of attacks that have frightened away visitors and devastated its economy, which relies heavily on tourism. 
 
 The government has stepped up controls at airports and land borders and deported thousands of foreign fighters, but has struggled to tackle the extremist threat while also conducting security operations against Kurdish rebels. Turkish airports have security checks at both the entrances to terminal buildings and before the entrances to departure gates. 
 
 This year alone, a Jan. 12 attack that Turkish authorities blamed on IS claimed the lives of a dozen German tourists visiting Istanbul's historic sites. On March 19, a suicide bombing rocked Istanbul's main pedestrian street, killing five people, including the bomber, whom the authorities identified as a Turkish national linked to IS. 
 
 Last October, twin suicide bombings hit a peace rally outside Ankara's train station, killing 103 people. There was no claim of responsibility but Turkish authorities blamed it on an Islamic State cell. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Fraser reported from Ankara. Zeynep Bilginsoy in Istanbul; Lori Hinnant in Paris; Bram Janssen in Istanbul, Desmond Butler in Washington, D.C. and Scott Mayerowitz in New York contributed. ||||| TUNIS A Tunisian military doctor seeking to retrieve his son who had joined Islamic State in Syria was among those killed in Tuesday's suicide attack by militants at Istanbul airport, a security sources said on Wednesday. 
 
 Three suspected Islamic State suicide bombers opened fire and blew themselves up in Istanbul's main airport on Tuesday evening, killing 41 people and wounding 239 in the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings this year in Turkey. 
 
 The Tunisian Defence Ministry confirmed that Brigadier General Fathi Bayoudh, a military hospital doctor, was among those killed. A senior security source and local media said he had been in Turkey to try and convince his son to leave Islamic State. 
 
 "Bayoudh traveled to Turkey in an effort to meet his son, who joined the Islamic State in Syria a few months ago with his girlfriend," the Tunisian security source said. 
 
 The source said the son had now been detained by Turkish troops on the border with Syria. 
 
 "Bayoudh's son traveled with his girlfriend who studied with him at the Faculty of Medicine a few months ago, which prompted several attempts by his father to persuade him to return," the source said. 
 
 Several local Tunisian newspapers online and radio also cited other security sources saying Bayoudh was in Turkey to met his son to try to persuade him to come home. 
 
 Tunisia has become a model of democratic reform in the Arab world since its 2011 uprising against autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. But it is also one of the largest sources of foreign fighters for Islamist groups in Iraq and Syria. 
 
 Government officials estimate more than 3,500 Tunisians have left to fight for Islamic State and other groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya, some in command positions. Some are recruited from impoverished areas in the North African nation, but others are professionals and graduates recruited online by jihadists. 
 
 (Reporting by Tarek Amara; editing by Patrick Markey and Gareth Jones)
– Police in Turkey have arrested at least 13 people, including three foreign nationals, in raids in Istanbul and around the country after Tuesday's devastating attack on Istanbul's Ataturk airport. The death toll from the attack, which has been blamed on ISIS, has now risen to 42, with more than 230 injured, and the country has declared Thursday a day of national mourning. Authorities say the three suicide bombers opened fire after failing to get past airport security, the AP reports. "When the terrorists couldn't pass the regular security system, when they couldn't pass the scanners, police, and security controls, they returned and took their weapons out of their suitcases and opened fire at random at the security check," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says. The Guardian reports that 23 Turks, including five police officers, several tour guides, and a taxi driver, have been identified among the dead. Six Saudis, two Iraqis, a Chinese citizen, a Ukrainian, and a Jordanian were also among those killed. Another victim was Brigadier General Fathi Bayoud, a Tunisian military doctor who had traveled to Turkey in an effort to bring home a son who had joined ISIS, Reuters reports. A security source says the son, who traveled to Syria with his girlfriend several months ago to join the militants, has now been detained by Turkish troops at the Syrian border.