The Arrivals Hall at Atatürk Airport

After last night’s suicide attack at Istanbul’s Atatürk International Airport, which killed forty-one people and injured more than two hundred others, a question kept nagging at me: Why did the three attackers choose the arrivals hall? Having lived in Istanbul for the past couple of years, I’ve spent a great deal of time at Atatürk, where travellers pass through security before checking in for their flights. The entry-control points at departures are thick with crowds waiting to X-ray their luggage. Those at arrivals are largely empty. When the airport is especially busy, I’ve often entered through arrivals and then hustled upstairs to departures to make a flight. The attack appears likely to be the work of ISIS (as Dexter Filkins explains), but no group has claimed responsibility for it.