Daesh bomber 'followed Israelis from Istanbul hotel'

#BREAKING: CCTV reveal #ISIS bomber in #Istanbul followed the Israeli tourist group hours before attacking https://t.co/83uW4cOsGL

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) March 21, 2016

Despite the ongoing friction between Israel and Turkey, which has seen the level of diplomatic relations downgraded and a constant barrage of criticism from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the cooperation between the two governments in the wake of the attacks was described by both sides as excellent.

In recent months, Israeli tourism in Turkey has picked up, after years in which Israelis kept away. Despite a suicide attack by Daesh in Istanbul two months ago, which left ten German tourists dead, and a series of attacks in the capital Ankara by the Turkish underground PKK, the Israeli National Security Council’s counterterrorism bureau kept its travel warning on Turkey as “potential threat”.

On Sunday, in the wake of the latest attack, it was raised to “concrete threat”. Israeli security officials have recently warned that Daesh would try to attack Israel in the near future but the assumption was that an attack would be carried out by one of the movement’s branches on the Syrian or Egyptian borders.

If the attack in Istanbul was indeed designed to hit Israeli tourists, it would seem that Daesh has reached a similar conclusion to that of Hizbollah - that Israelis abroad are the weak spot in Israel’s security set-up. The 2012 bombing of a bus in Burgas in which five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian driver were killed has been attributed to the Lebanese organisation.