The Islamic State released an announcement that calls the perpetrator of New Year’s Eve attacks “our soldier”. The terrorist attack at club Reina in Constantinople left 39 people dead and 64 wounded.

In the announcement ISIS claims that its “soldier” was targeting Christians that celebrate the New Year’s Eve “apostates”. “A  soldier of the Caliphate hit one of the best known centers that Christians celebrate the New Year’s Eve” they write.

The message was released by an Telegram account, a method they have also used in the past.

So far there is no official response from the Turkish authorities, while at the same time the suspect is still at large.

The Turkish police have concluded that the suspect is of a relatively young age, probably around 25 years old, while the witness accounts according to which he was not speaking good Turkish, indicate that he is either from Kirgizstan or Uzbekistan.

The Turkish police had given yesterday the photo of an individual that turned out not to be the suspect. Today the Turkish authorities gave a new photo from the security cameras. However, the suspect’s face is not clear.

According to the newspaper Milliet, the suspect used three clips of 30 bullets each and he was shooting on the head even those that had fell on the ground. After the attack he cleaned his gun that he left behind in the club and left by a taxi.

Eye witnesses stated that he was calm, smiling and he screamed “Allahu Acbar” a few times.