Turkish police release attacker’s selfie video

Turkish investigators continue to search for the man who opened fire in a crowded nightclub early New Year’s Day, killing 39 people and wounding dozens more.

Although they haven’t released his name, police provided local media with a 44-second video the man apparently took either shortly before or just after the attack. In it, he trains his cellphone camera on his face as he walks around Istanbul’s Taksim square, a popular tourist spot. Investigators have not said how they obtained the footage.

About 24 hours after the shooting, Islamic State claimed to have directed the attack, calling the gunman a “heroic soldier of the caliphate.”

A Turkish newspaper claims the man is thought to be a member of China’s Muslim Uighur minority, but investigators have not confirmed that. Other reports say he flew to Istanbul from Kyrgyzstan with his wife and children on Nov. 20. They eventually rented an apartment in Konya, in the country’s central region.

Investigators detained an unidentified woman in Konya. According to media reports, she is the suspect’s wife. She allegedly told police she didn’t know her husband had connections to Islamic State.

Police have detained 14 people in connection to the attack, including two foreigners attempting to fly out of the country through Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport. Investigators have speculated the nightclub gunman might be a part of the same terror cell that attacked the airport in June, killing 45 people.

Multiple attacks rocked Turkey in 2016, but this morning the country’s interior minister told Parliament that security forces thwarted 339 possible attacks. Almost all, 313, he attributed to Kurdish separatists, with just 22 blamed on Islamic State.