Washington, DC -The Syrian American Council, the oldest and largest grassroots Syrian-American organization, condemns the heart-breaking attacks at the Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey which claimed at least 42 innocent lives and injured over 200 people on Tuesday. Though no one has claimed responsibility, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has stated that ISIS is responsible.

Turkey has been hit by a wave of terror attacks by ISIS and a PKK offshoot since the start of 2016, including a suicide bombing at the historic Blue Mosque in Istanbul, a bus bombing in the central square of the capital Ankara, and a rocket attack on a minibus in Diyarbakir, southern Turkey. The upsurge in violence is in many ways a spillover from the vicious attacks being carried out by the Assad regime, Iran-backed militias, and Russia on civilians across the border.

"Unless the Assad regime is uprooted, terror and assassinations in the Middle-East -- tools that Assad and his allies Russia, Iran and Hizbollah have consistently resorted to -- will not stop," said Dr. Zaki Lababidi, SAC's Government Relations Chair.