Three suicide bombers opened fire then blew themselves up in Istanbul's main international airport on Tuesday, killing 36 people and wounding close to 150 in what Turkey's prime minister said appeared to have been an attack by Islamic State militants.

One attacker opened fire in the departures hall with an automatic rifle, sending passengers diving for cover and trying to flee, before all three blew themselves up in or around the arrivals hall a floor below, witnesses and officials said.

The attack on Europe's third-busiest airport was one of the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings in Turkey, which is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State and is struggling to contain the spillover from neighboring Syria's civil war. It is also battling an insurgency by Kurdish militants in its largely Kurdish southeast.

Police fired shots to try to stop two of the attackers just before they reached a security checkpoint at the arrivals hall, but they detonated their explosives, a Turkish official said.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said: "This attack, targeting innocent people is a vile, planned terrorist act."

"There is initial evidence that each of the three suicide bombers blew themselves up after opening fire," he told reporters at the airport. Yildirim said the attackers had come to the airport by taxi and that preliminary findings pointed to Islamic State responsibility.

Two U.S. counterterrorism officials familiar with the early stages of investigations said Islamic State was at the top of the list of suspects even though there was no evidence yet.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the use of suicide bombers against "soft" targets was more typical of Islamic State than the other obvious suspect, Kurdish PKK militants who generally attack official government targets.

One of the officials also said that, while Islamic State had recently stepped up attacks in Turkey, the group rarely claims responsibility because Turkey remains one of the main corridors for its fighters traveling from Europe to Syria and Iraq.

No group had claimed responsibility more than nine hours after the attack, which started around 9:50 p.m. local time (1850 GMT).

The attack bore similarities to a suicide bombing by Islamic State militants at Brussels airport in March that killed 16 people. A coordinated attack also targeted a rush-hour metro train, killing a further 16 people in the Belgian capital.

Reuters

 

 

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TWO EXPLOSIONS HIT ISTANBUL’S

 

ATATURK AIRPORT,ATLEAST 10 DEAD

 

 

MULTIPLE INJURIES – TURKISH JUSTICE MINISTER

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U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama has urged girls in Liberia to fight to stay in school, as she began her tour of Africa, aiming at promoting girls’ education.

The First Lady is accompanied on the tour by her two daughters Malia, 17, and Sasha, 15, as well as her mother Marian Robinson.

Michelle launched her “Let Girls Learn” education initiative in March 2015, and has been travelling across the globe to solicit for greater support for millions of girls kept away from school or forced to abandon their studies for various reasons.

The mother of two met girls and young women in Kakata, east of the capital Monrovia. 

faced serious obstacles in attaining an education”, according to a White House statement.

The United States Agency for International Development (USaid) meanwhile announced on Monday millions more dollars of funding would be made available to support the Let Girls Learn Initiative in Liberia.

Mitchelle is due to travel to Morocco after her Liberia visit.

Reuters

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In March, the country’s highest court found that the president had violated the constitution by defying an ombudswoman’s order to repay some of the money in one of several scandals that have dominated his presidency.

The court asked the national treasury to determine the value of the non-security upgrades at Zuma’s Nkandla homestead in rural KwaZulu-Natal province. 

The work included a swimming pool, which was claimed to be a fire-fighting facility, a chicken run, a cattle enclosure, an amphitheatre and a visitors’ centre.

The National Treasury said in a statement that Zuma should pay back 7,814,155 rand ($509,000).

CCTV

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Nigerian Federal high court annulled the election of the governor of Abia State in the south eastern part of Nigeria for submitting false information to his political party during the 2014 elections reports local media.

The court held that Mr. Ikpeazu was guilty of tax evasion and was therefore unqualified to have contested the 2015 governorship election in the state. 

The court also ordered the governor to vacate office immediately, and hand over to Mr. Ogah, owner of Masters Energy, who came second in the PDP governorship primaries in Abia.

Mr. Ikpeazu is yet to comment on the judgement.

Background

Two members of the PDP had accused Mr. Ikpeazu of failing to pay per­sonal income tax promptly as and when due for 2010 and 2011 in line with Section 24(f) of the 1999 Constitution, which states that “It shall be the duty of every citizen to … declare his income honestly to appropriate and lawful agencies and pay his tax promptly.

Premuim Times

 

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Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed in fresh clashes in South Sudan. Government troops are fighting as yet unidentified gunmen in the country's north-west. Much of the unrest is taking place in Wau, a town where Chinese peacekeepers are based…

In Madagascar, the families of those killed in Sunday's grenade attack have spoken out. The blast took place at a stadium in the capital, Antananarivo, as the country marked 56 years of independence. At least two people were killed and another 70 wounded… 

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