January 2016 Istanbul bombing

2016 Istanbul bombing
Sultanahmet Square and the Obelisk of Theodosius.
Location	Sultanahmet, Fatih, Istanbul, Turkey
Date	12 January 2016
Target	Foreign tourists
Attack type	Suicide bombing
Deaths	14 (including the perpetrator)
Non-fatal injuries	9
Perpetrators	Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Participant	1 (Nabil Fadli)

Coordinates: 41°0′21.24″N 28°58′31.43″E / 41.0059000°N 28.9753972°E / 41.0059000; 28.9753972

On 12 January 2016, a suicide attack in Istanbul's historic Sultanahmet district killed 13 people, all foreigners, and injured 14 others. The attack occurred at 10:20 local time, near the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, an area popular among tourists. The attacker was Nabil Fadli (Arabic: نبيل فضلي‎‎), a Syrian member of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The last major attack on Sultanahmet Square occurred on 6 January 2015, when a suicide bomber detonated herself at a police station. The DHKP-C initially took responsibility for the attack but later retracted this claim. It was later revealed that the suicide bomber was Diana Ramazanova (Russian: Диана Рамазова), a national of Dagestan origin with links to ISIL.

In 2015, Turkey suffered two major bombing attacks. In July, 33 people were killed in an ISIL suicide attack in the town of Suruç, near Turkey's border with Syria. In October, two suicide bombers detonated explosives which killed more than 100 people outside Ankara's main train station as people gathered for a peace rally. It was Turkey's deadliest attack. The prosecutor's office said it was carried out by a local ISIL cell.