Istanbul bomber registered in Turkey but not on wanted list

ISTANBUL - A suicide bomber who killed himself and 10 tourists, most of them German, in Istanbul's historic heart had registered with Turkish immigration authorities but was not on any list of known militant suspects, Turkey's interior minister said on Wednesday.

The bomber, an Islamic State member thought to have come recently from Syria, blew himself up on Tuesday in Sultanahmet square near the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, major tourist sites in one of the world's most visited cities.
"Your assessment that his fingerprints were taken and there is a record of him is correct. But he was not on the wanted individuals list. And neither is he on the target individuals list sent to us by other countries," Ala told a joint news conference with his German counterpart Thomas de Maiziere.

Turkey’s Haberturk newspaper published what it said was a CCTV image of the bomber, identified in some local media reports as Saudi-born Nabil Fadli, at an immigration office in Istanbul on Jan. 5.
Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Tuesday the bomber had been identified from body parts at the scene, was born in 1988, and thought to have been living in Syrian, from where he was believed to have recently entered Turkey.
The Istanbul attack, targeting groups of tourists as they wandered around the square, appeared to mark a change in Islamic State's tactics against Turkey