Turkey’s intel agency captures another key suspect in 2013 terrorist attack in Hatay

Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) has captured one of the alleged masterminds behind a 2013 terrorist attack in southern Turkey in an operation on the Syrian-Lebanese border, the private DHA news agency reported.

Reyhanlı, a town of 64,000 in Hatay province near the Syrian border, was hit by two car bombings in May 2013 that killed 53 people.

At the time the Turkish government blamed al-Mukhabarat, the Syrian intelligence agency under the now-ousted regime of Bashar al-Assad, for the attack, one of the deadliest in Turkey’s history. The Syrian government denied responsibility.

Temir Dükancı, who is allegedly affiliated with al-Mukhabarat, was captured as he attempted to flee Syria for Lebanon, fearing arrest following the fall of the al-Assad regime in December. He was brought to Turkey and placed in the custody of the Hatay police.

Dükancı allegedly helped transport the explosives used in the Reyhanlı bombings into Turkey by sea and provided the vehicles to carry them.

Authorities also suspect Dükancı was planning an attack against Turkish representatives abroad and was seeking a fake passport.

He appeared on Turkey’s wanted list for terrorism, with a reward of up to 8 million lira ($220,000) offered for information leading to his capture.

In a similar development last month, MİT also captured Syrian national Muhammed Dib Korali, another key suspect in the Reyhanlı bombing. He was arrested by a court in Hatay.

In February 2018 a Turkish court sentenced nine of 33 suspects to aggravated life and 13 others to between 10 and 15 years in prison in a trial related to the Reyhanlı bombings.

MİT also captured another key suspect, Yusuf Nazik, in the Reyhanlı attack in the Syrian port city of Latakia in 2018.

Nazik confessed that on a tipoff from Syrian intelligence he scouted the crime scene prior to the attack and moved explosives from Syria to Turkey in two vehicles he had procured.

Nazik, who was born in the Antakya district of Hatay, admitted he was acting on orders from Syrian intelligence.

He was handed down 53 aggravated life sentences for his role in the attack.