Turkey probes for ISIL link in Istanbul attack

The profiles of the perpetrators of this week's attacks in Paris and Istanbul attack are completely different. The former suggests two French brothers of Algerian origin, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, whose links with extremist jihadist terror organizations were disclosed by intelligence organizations in Western countries. Saïd Kouachi is known to have traveled to Yemen in 2011 to receive terrorist training and the brothers were under surveillance (although not very successfully) of the French secret service and anti-terror units.

For the Istanbul bomber, believed to be Diana Ramazova, a Russian citizen of Chechen origin, we do have not much information, except that she entered Turkey in June 2014 as a tourist. She was among nearly 40 million foreigners who enter Turkey as tourists every year, and neither her appearance nor her profile would alert any security official to the fact that she would one day detonate herself in front of a police station. Although there is no official statement yet about the bomber?s organizational links, security and intelligence officials are looking into her potential ties with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

But still, these two deadly attacks could be linked, according to Turkish security officials, whose analysis can be summarized as follows: ?If this attack in Istanbul is really related to ISIL, then we might correlate it with the attack in Paris. This could lead us to think that both attacks might have been orchestrated by the secret services of certain countries, given the fact that Turkey and France share similar lines on the Syrian issue.?

That would be among other reasons why Turkey immediately offered intelligence, cooperation and political support to French institutions. Turkish...