[1] Monitoring group Turkey Blocks identified widespread internet restrictions on incoming and outgoing media affecting the entire country in the aftermath of the attack.

[6][7][8] Turkish officials said the attackers were acting on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and had come to Turkey from ISIL-controlled Syria.

Istanbul had already been subjected to three terrorist attacks in the first half of 2016, including suicide attacks in January and in March that were both linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and a car bombing in early June claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), a "radical offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)".

[13] It was suggested that Turkey was paying a price for former Prime Minister and now President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's wilful blindness to ISIL threat,[9] and that Turkey, after previously being a conduit for fighters joining ISIL, was beginning to feel the wrath of the group for taking a harder line.

[10] The Washington Post wrote that "perhaps not by chance, what was merely the latest in a series of Islamic State attacks inside Turkey came just as its impulsive and increasingly autocratic president was moving to repair his regime’s threadbare foreign relations".

[14] Shortly before 22:00 Istanbul time, two assailants approached the x-ray scanner at a security checkpoint, and opened fire.

[19] A closed-circuit television video of this incident showed an armed assailant walking and firing at people within the terminal.

[20] During and immediately after the attacks, hundreds of passengers and people inside the airport hid anywhere they could in shops, washrooms, and under benches.

"[4] Independent internet monitoring group Turkey Blocks reported that social networks Twitter and Facebook were slowed to the point of being unusable at 1:06 am on 29 June, approximately three hours after the attack.

[6] On 30 June, the BBC reported that the attackers were from the Russian North Caucasus region, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

[2] On 1 July, a report quoted a highly placed U.S. congressman as saying the attack had been organized by a Chechen extremist known to be a top ISIS lieutenant, Akhmed Chatayev.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, stated that Chatayev directed the attack.

[45] Two of the three attackers were identified as Rakim Bulgarov and Vadim Osmanov, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.

[47] Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a statement condemning the attack, which took place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

[49] The Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama's plane was landing when the attack occurred; he was evacuated from Atatürk into an official residence.

[50] On 29 June, Turkish authorities detained 22 people in response to the attack: thirteen in Istanbul and nine in the coastal city of İzmir.

Airport visitors reported that public transport was at full capacity in the days that followed, and that locals were still highly concentrated in the market squares.

[52] The United Nations likewise condemned the attacks,[53] and the Council of Europe and the European Union extended their condolences and solidarity for Turkey.