ISTANBUL/TBILISI--Two Russian nationals have been identified as suspected Islamic State suicide bombers in the attack on Istanbul's main airport that is thought to have been masterminded by a Chechen, Turkish media said on Friday.
Forty-four people were killed in Tuesday's bombings and shootings, which targeted one of the world's busiest airports. Prosecutors have identified two of the three suspected attackers as Russians Rakim Bulgarov and Vadim Osmanov, state-run Anadolu Agency said.
Turkish officials declined to comment. One government official had previously said the attackers were Russian, Uzbek and Kyrgyz nationals.
The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper has said the organiser of the attack, the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings in NATO-member Turkey this year, was suspected to be a Chechen double-amputee called Akhmed Chatayev. Chatayev is identified on a United Nations sanctions list as a leader in Islamic State responsible for training Russian-speaking militants.
He was arrested in Bulgaria five years ago on a Russian extradition request but freed because he had refugee status in Austria, a Bulgarian judge said. A year later he was wounded and captured in Georgia but again released.
Turkish police on Friday detained 11 foreigners in Istanbul on suspicion of belonging to an Islamic State cell linked to the attack, Anadolu reported, bringing the number of people detained in the investigation to 24. A police spokesman could not confirm the report.
In a separate operation, 17 Islamic State militants were detained in the southeastern city of Gaziantep on Friday, the city's governor office said in a statement.
Turkish officials have not given many details beyond confirming the attackers' nationalities. They have previously said that forensic teams were struggling to identify the suicide bombers from their limited remains.
Yeni Safak has said one of the bombers was from Dagestan, which borders Chechnya where Moscow has led two wars against separatists and Islamist militants since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
