Airport Attack Hits Symbol of Turkey’s Global Aspirations

As officials said on Wednesday that the death toll from [the suicide attack Tuesday night at Istanbul Ataturk Airport] had risen to 41, details about the victims began trickling out. At least 23 of them were from Turkey, according to a Turkish official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the attack.

The victims reflected the cosmopolitan and international character of Istanbul, whose airport is among the world’s busiest, a hub for tens of millions of passengers each year connecting to Europe, the Middle East, Africa and beyond. Among the victims were five Saudis, two Iraqis and one citizen each from China, Iran, Jordan, Tunisia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, the Turkish official said.

Hours after the attack — which has not been claimed by any group, although Turkish officials said they suspected it was the work of the Islamic State — a limited number of flights resumed, and workers continued clearing debris and replacing shattered windows at the airport.

Unlike Brussels, where a terrorist attack in March closed the airport for days, Istanbul appeared determined to get back to business as usual. Under a sunny sky Wednesday morning, cars streamed into the airport’s international terminal, where the attack occurred, almost like on a normal weekday.

Even as the airport reopened, scenes of grief played out at a nearby hospital. A young woman, wearing a brown and pink head scarf, rocked softly back and forth as an older woman embraced her, sobbing. The young woman’s husband was among the injured, and doctors had told her to prepare for the worst.

A majority of the victims appeared to be Muslims, either Turks or visitors from Muslim countries. If the bombings are confirmed to be the work of the Islamic State, it would show once again that the group, which portrays itself as defending Islam and fighting Western powers, kills far more Muslims on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria or in terrorist attacks in the region, than it does non-Muslims.

The attack cast a pall over a city that until recently was brimming with self-confidence, projecting itself as a rambunctious, multicultural hub for the arts, with great cuisine and a dazzling history as a former imperial capital.

But a series of terrorist attacks over the last year, some attributed to the Islamic State and others to Kurdish militants, have decimated Turkey’s carefully crafted image as a haven in a dangerous region, and they have damaged its once-thriving tourism industry.

At least part of the reason for patching up relations with Israel and Russia was to help improve Turkey’s beleaguered tourism industry, and it bore quick results: On Wednesday, Russia announced that it would lift a travel ban to Turkey and was moving toward normalizing economic relations.

Subways and streets in Istanbul were quiet on Wednesday, with tourists who had come despite a string of attacks over the last year — the airport bombings were the fourth suicide attack in Istanbul alone this year — trying to enjoy themselves.

“It’s really sad,” said Alex Afridi, 50, from Sacramento, who was visiting Turkey with his family and staying in a hotel in the Beyoglu neighborhood of Istanbul. “This city was already hurting. It’s an amazing city.”

He had decided to come to Turkey even though relatives kept asking him if it was safe. He said the probability of being killed might be higher in his hometown.

“We have drive-by shootings all the time where we live,” he said.

Turks said they felt stunned at the dismal turn their country had taken.

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