Media digs into background of Istanbul attack suspect from Russia

Read on the website Vestnik Kavkaza

Turkish state media have identified Rahim Bulgarov as one of the suspected suicide bombers who attacked Istanbul's Ataturk airport on June 29, killing 45 people and wounding hundreds.

Bulgarov grew up in Karachaevo-Cherkessia's illage of Ikon-Khalk. His teacher at the college said Bulgarov was one of his best students with a dream to launch a car repair shop.

Bulgarov graduated from the college in 2011, and his teacher expected him to either pursue the workshop plan or keep studying, maybe at university in the nearby city of Pyatigorsk.

After Bulgarov graduated from college, he had been working on a farm and in construction in his Ikon-Khalk. But the village was changing. In 2013 or 2014, young local men started visiting the mosque at the end of his street. Some of them have been drawn to radical forms of Islam which they feel offers a way to address injustices.

Three Egyptian security sources told Reuters Bulgarov spent 7 months and 12 days in Cairo. Bulgarov left Egypt on Jan. 13 for Turkey, according to the three Egyptian sources.

Some time after that, he returned to Russia and was interviewed by the Federal Security Service (FSB) and had to undergo a lie detector test.