keeping the power lines clear,my job to protect public safety, while also protecting the environment. the natural world is a beautiful thing, the work that we do helps us protect it. public education is definitely a big part of our job, to teach our customers about the best type of trees to plant around the power lines. we want to keep the power on for our customers. we want to keep our community safe. this is our community, this is where we live. we need to make sure that we have a beautiful place for our children to live. together, we're building a better california.

welcome, breaking news out of the is tan butte. we are watching some pictures cusp in, a terror attack. 35 at least dead, 40 wounded in a night nightclub attack. unconfirmed by nbc news or msnbc is that there's a single attacker still in the night inclusive. that was the latest -- we believe the attack has happened right after the new years. that's the latest, but we they also have been very clear to say that they are going to be careful about the amount of information that they're releasing, as well as the access

they would like to have to the pieces of information that's known or unknown at the moment. this because of, again, the ongoing situation with the attack attacker although the last information has stayed static, ear watching a continuous run of ambulances, all the new pictures that have come in from ntv, the state-run news agency, unfortunately have been with long lines of ambulances, nbc's matt bradley has been in washington, watches this story. what have you seen, matt? >> thanks, richard. i've been seeing the same things that you've been seeing. the governor of istanbul saying this will be treated as a terrorist attack.

they thought the assailant is actually still holed up somewhere in the nightclub. this is looking something like the built ataclan attack in paris or even the ones in orlando that killed so many this past summer. >> it was a club that was filled almost to the brim, thought to be some 500 people inside. if the gunman is still inside and still carrying the beps that he opened fire on, there still may be some characters to come. they negotiations to strep for hours, if there are some -- whether he managed to escape, or whether police have detained him and simply aren't releasing that information. of course, we'll get that to you when it comes to us. but there's been no claim of responsibility at this early

hour. istanb tan butte and the greate turkey has been battered for years with attacks. every since the civil war in 2011, and facing off against syria, a stubborn separatist movement that's been raging for decades, even a left-wing political movement that remains at least somewhat active. erdogan has made so many enemies, he's till reince from an attempted cool that nearly succeeded in unseating him. and then think killed hundreds, later arrested thousands in a sweeping purge. all of this apparently with shall 181 turks were killed. if you're a turkish citizen, coming into just the beginning.

you're going to not see just the terrible year you just left, but an awful omen for a bloody year to come. richard? >> you bring that up, unfortunately here, matt, we have a graphic that shows what happened last year, by the numbers, the major terror attacks in turkey just in the past year, and you can see there four attacks, at least 68 killed. there in south one attack, 32 killed. three attacks. the numbers are long, unfortunately, and as you so well noted. with this ringses in the new year, and this being as richard engel was describing, as one of those attacks against the people in a celebratory mood in the new years makes it slightly different, very different in terms of the -- >> if i can break in again. matt bradley.

matt, go ahead. >> well, i just wanted to mention as well. we haven't had an actual claim of responsible, but probably islamic state. just a couple fax about that. islamic state is thought thof attacked turkey several times. the last two other three years. almost have never claimed responsibility for any attack they've been suspected of launching, so that means if it was islamic state. and you can be certain some elements will be focus odd that, they have a tendia ento not claim responsibility. so it's possible this terror attack could go unclaimed, and the actual perpetrator could go without. if there's no solid claim of responsibility from islamic

state, but there is one clue that we should mention here, islamic states, a group affiliated, just a couple days ago released a statement urging its followers to try to launch attacks again soft targets. we saw the berlin attacks last week that killed ten people when a hijackers jumped a current, but in catches even in western europe. now that this attack happened, this al nashir post specifically called out turkey and set that turkey that's let by the united states, that they should take the brunt of these attacks, and muslims should turn their weapons on to their fellow citizens or security targets and try to take out as many people

as a possible. this holiday season was always going to be grim, and as far as turkish authorities were concerned, they are patterned prepares for something like this. >> i now ear going to get back to try to get more facts for us, as the story continues to develop. matt, thank you,ivity to move over to malcolm nance, with 35 years in intelligence experience, malcolm, the points that have been discussed in the last 30 minutes is the islamic state. isis encouraged or inspired, and matt bradley brought that up. we have not confirmation of anybody claiming responsibility, but that certainly is in the background. our chief foreign correspondent richard engel, who we spoke with, who is so familiar with the region, so familiar with

istanbul said there were records of ice sis being relate d don't overemphasize that report, but the lone wolf type of attacker that claims to be associated with isis as we saw in san bernardino, and other places right before their attacks. what's your thought on how to discuss this, malcolm? >> the closer you are to isis' caliphate, the less type of attacker that you have on that from that dimension. you have people who are actual cells in iraq, in -- i'm sorry. not just in iraq, in turkey, who are run -- isis' turkish wing

and daert out logistical operations, pushing agencies on into europe, and carrying out the suicide -- many of these suicide attacks we have seen this year, but without attribution, so the government of turkey knows it may be the islamic state, but they're not going to say anything, because even isis knows that it is far more advantageous to allow turkeys to use these attacks for political purposes, but also to get your point across that you're destabilizing your -- so all of that said, we don't know tlooz place emphasize on separatist groups that have been operating, and quite foible carry out attacks again the ipp, because that means turk

irforepolicy goals, it could be that another national group who carried out this attack in turkey to make it look like it is a kurdish or isis-related attack in order to bring about revenge, retaliation against either one of those groups. you can't discount it could be a syrian militia associated with bashar al assad regime who may want turkey to carry out attacks against the kurds in the northeastern syria. that shows you the convoluted literally byzantine nature of the way that terror groups attack. all of that being said, i know nbc news hasn't shown it yesterday, but there is media playing now in the social networks showing security cameras at the moment of

attacks. one of the things, and jim cavanaugh can talk about this later, when i was trained as a s.w.a.t. officer. the first thing you do is you allow the electricities to define who he is and how he is. so this media we're seeing at the initial moments of the attack, right now i see two different attackers one at the initial point of attack there's a guy in a black suit with a very large backpack, tactically proficient at shooting automatic weapons, kills the policemen in the street and continues the assault. that speak toss a very well-trained group who has a lot of proficiency in combat. that's the islamic state group. none of us will know this until security forces kill this person. i wouldn't doubt at this point that the shooter may in fact be dead and they're just waiting for their sweep.

eyewince reports shah the special turk irk forces were in the building rather fast. that is a lesson when you do a delibera deliberate, when i train law enforcement here in the united states look like active shooters in the united states tends to break up these attacks. so we don't know whether the situation has been resolved but it's really too early to determine who has done this. but as time goes by, we're going to get this information, and one last point i'd like to make. it doesn't matter if a shooter shouts out something. in the turkish language it's the same statement that you would

make in arabic or erdu, or many other languages. we shouldn't bring that completely together until it's confirmed by law enforcement or the government. and the video that you alluded to, unconfirmed by nbc news, as you so well pointed out. what we do know is at least one according to a security at the nightclub telling our nbc producer on the ground there that there's an attacker still in the nightclub. of course, there would be more, because so much is unknown, and they're being very careful there publicly to say they're not going to release a lot of information along the way because of this onget situation. mad com also, as you've covered intelligence, this is the situation, and you reflected on this earlier, but go back to that for us, if you will. ayman mohyeldin who has covered the middle east for years, was

looking at some of the reporting coming out of istanbul, out of turkey, in that they had intelligence from the west, and also from the region that said look out, reina could be a target, they adjusted, according to the reporting, therefore the security profile there. but the panoply of threats that might be out there, how as an intelligence expert then triage where you should put your resources, because you can't cover them all? >> you're absolutely right. you can't cover them all. i've been in that circumstance, where we had very, very highly detail intelligence of a terrorist attack, but it was going to occur at a nightclub, and we just did not know specifically what nightclub. and so, and for those people who might remember history, you know, this was in berlin, in the 1980s. the military police in berlin

hit every nightclub where american soldiers were congregated. that's because we knew it would be against american soldiers. just minutes before they could get to one nightclub, the terrorist attack was carried out. several u.s. service members were killed and they had a mission success, despite all of our efforts. so u.s. intelligence allies itself with turkey as a member of nato, and we pushed down information, especially if it's collected from technical intelligence or we have very specific information, and we let them know, if the owner of the reina nightclub owner has in fact was notified of this through turkey via u.s. intelligence or some liaison, that tells you the system did work, but like all acts of terrorism, you only have to be successful once. it's virtually impossible to stop a man at the front door of

a nightclub who comes gunning immediately at the door unless you have -- you know he's coming. and that's virtually -- super-hard to do. jim cavanaugh can tell you, any law enforcement can tell you, the most you can do is draw a weapon at that point. that appears to be what happened with the security guard, and he was killed. once the gunman has penetrated the perimeter and starts his suicide hostage barricade or his mass murder, then at that point all you can do -- all intelligence fails, right? you're at what we call the point of failure, because right now you are in the environment in your intelligence switching to tactical intelligence and support of the special operations team that is going to push inward and move to contact, and resolve the situation and neutralize the terrorist as quickly as possible. so malcolm -- go ahead, please

finish. >> i was going to say. intelligence is not perfect. >> yeah. >> we could have had everything about this attack, but there's always one factor, and i emphasize this to all tactical officers, you do not determine the outcome of a terrorist attack. the terrorist team leader or the terrorist himself will determine when he attacks, why he will attack and how he will attack. those are variables that no matter how good -- unless you have infiltrated that team and you have a man on the inside, you will just have to deal with as it unfolds. >> in your business as well as jim cavanaugh's, this discussion and the evolution, the arc of what was called a mass murderer, now potentially called a terror attack, and where those overlap, not that it's important at this point, because they're just trying to apprehend the attackers at the moment, but

that evolution of the way you discuss it in your business, an unfortunate development in recent years. before we go to a break here, i wanted to quickly get your thought, though, turkey is turkey, an important strategic country. istanbul, a thriving metropolis, loved by so many visitors. this is that nexus, that cross roads politically, culturally, and geographically, one of the great points in a continent of the world. if this is a terror attack, what is the message you believe the attacker may be trying to push they here? or what does it mean, regardless of what that attacker was trying to accomplish? >> the definition of terrorism is an act of violence or political violent or threat of political violence in which the audience is the global world, it's the media and the world

outside of the immediate victims. the immediate victims are just the mechanism to get us to do what we are doing right now, which is to put eyes on of a billion people onto this circumstance. the message will be amplified once we actually find out what is political ideology or is political message was. at some point, you know, people will come out and start having eyewitness statements and isis or some other group, whoever the terrorist group's support is, will start out and putting out their manifesto, what they did this attack for. when that's amply fitted into the news media, they have a mission success. whether, you know, they had for intention of coming out of these attacks alive. the point is to keep eyes on this, keep the media completely focused, and act as the megaphone of the terrorist group, which is terrorism, right? to terrorize all of us around

the world, watching this and wondering if our lives will be impacted in the same way. >> malcolm nance, thank you for that, and stand by, and appreciate your perspective. we're going to take a short break. when we come back, what the reverberations mean for the united states. big celebrations impending. in just 3 1/2 hours here at times square, the ball will drop, a new year will begin. it's already begun there in istanbul with unfortunate repercussions, an unfortunate development of that attack where 35 are dead. how they are reacting here in the united states? jonathan dienst tells us, after this.

news comes out of istanbul, turkey, a:25 local time, but it's 9:24 p.m., not a new year yet here in the united states, but a new year with an unfortunate incident of an attack that killed 35 so far in

istanbul. that number could change, though. we've gotten statements in terms of the reverberations here in the united states, of course the concern about security and such attacks happening in the united states. the president has been briefed. we also had a statement from the national security council as well, also a statement from governor cuomo, the governor andrew cuomo of, again, the state of new york saying this in part -- as we continue to learn the facts i have directed all new york law enforcement to remain vigilant as new year's eve celebrations take place. additional the new york state police, the emergency operations center, the intelligence center and division of homeland security security and service are monitoring the developments for any potential threats and remain in constant communication with their local and federal partners. again that statement coming in on a new year's late hour from the governor of new york state,

governor cuomo. also statements from new york police department, wnbc's jonathan dienst, investigative reporter there, speaking with sources, saying that they are repositioning some of their assets. he joins us right now. jonathan, what else are you learning in terms of how they're talking about what's happening in turkey and how they may be adjusting their strategy here in the state and in the city. >> reporter: well, i was in times conveyor with nypd brass this evening as news started to come in, and nypd officials began to huddle and ordered the redeployment of some units that were out patrolling other parts of the city tonight, to start heading to night clubs and disk

discoteques. and that is just one part of the multifaceted deployment that the nypd has, and of course you have several officers already layer after layer of activity, everything from dump trucks filled with sand, to try to prevent an attack, to added snipers on rooftops, to just an enormous number of bomb-sniffing dogs this year, patrolling in and around. on top of that you have a concert at madison square garden and other venues in the region, so a huge contingency of officers already deployed. now they are adding to their list of places to really focus on and defend night clubs because of the concern of a possible copycat or until they learn more about what happened over there, and whether it has

any impact here in new york. so across new york, outside bars, outside night clubs, you're likely to see nypd patrol cars and counter-terror teams out-front where happens they may not have been deployed to those spots. that's one example of what the nypd is doing. >> and again, jonathan, as you have been reporting since this attack, no new credible threats, right? nothing new in terms of what we're hearing hear here in new york city. yes, so the fbi, for example has its counter-terrorism center up and running, fully deployed. they were in there earlier this evening, and we spoke to officials, and there's nothing new or credible. obvious they turn out to be nothing. they coordinating with overseas intelligence agencies for any

for the latest on any on information coming out of the turkey, where we've seen recent threats and plots take place. so there are several up and running, all trying to get intelligence information and get that out to the field quickly so that the troops on the ground, the police officers on the ground can deploy to the best areas to try to help protect the city. the leading concern they say, is the lone wolf. that is what they're worried about here in new york, the one guy who may take it upon himself to act, just not on the radar screen. that seems to be the biggest concern they have for this evening, but as of now, everything seems to be going smoothly in times square, no reported incidents, and everything seems to be under control, and everyone seems at least for the crowd, they seem to be having a good time while

nypd officials and have additional worries tonight. they often describe the capability, if not the finest, one of the finest in the world. what has this meant for those on the street that we're showing some of the pictures of? they still seem to be having a good time. as you just left times square and also leaving the brad there on the ground watching it. what was their sense about the mood? >> the mood among the revelers, they all seem to be having a good time, celebrating, having a great time. there seemed to be some -- it's a constant concern here for officials. they know new york remains a top target, and this goes always great concern about what they don't know. what are they miss snowing what else is out there that they

could be or should be looking for? that's always in the back of their minds, especially on a night like tonight, where you have over a million people in the times square area ready to ring in the new year, among the biggest stages on the globe tonight, if not the biggest, and they know that, and they worry about it, and that's what they get paid to worry about. so certainly they'll be much happier once midnight comes and goes. >> yeah. >> but they expect everything to go smoothly here in new york tonight. >> it is clockwork. they do such a great job. you see the number of hats and people in times square, it goes as far as the eyes can see, so many people look -- but potential for a -- as you're head nodding to the law enforcement on the ground. jonathan dienst, thank you for that report, again understanding of how we're reacting here in the united states about what has happened in istanbul turkey.

for those of you just joining us here on msnbc here at the bottom of the hour, i want to update you in terms of what we know at this point. the local hour in the 5:00 a.m. hour there in istanbul turkey, we believe with about four hours ago, that an attacker entered into the reina nightclub there in istanbul, also a restaurant that sits right on the bos strait. 35 dead after the attacker enters and begins shooting, 40 wounded. of the 35 dead we know of right now in this changing situation, one law enforcement. of those wounded, the last report, ten were this critical condition. nobody has claimed responsibility. they have cordoned off a

two-mile radius around the reina nightclub, and if he about ink that full, it is sitting right there on the bosphorus strait, an area normally quite well attended by those of many different backgrounds, as well as this nightclub specifically tending to be a very popular upscale nightclub and restaurant that was supposed to be a new year's eve celebration, but within an hour after the new year, this attack has happened. we're watching what's happening, the officials there in istanbul giving us information, as well as the new sense of what's going on on the ground. a lot of ambulances, fairly consistently throughout the last several hours, as we've been following this, along with us, following this story, as nbc's

matt bradley the comment that's been put out there locally in istanbul, turkey, is we're going to be careful about the information we're giving out, and hence, although those who have been following the story with us may see that a lot of the details have stayed somewhat the same, any slight change may not be heard of for some time until they, if you will, secure the area, this two-mile radius, they secure, apprehend or kill the suspect or suspects. at the moment we know of only one confirmed by a security at the location, according to our nbc producers, that this -- this is slow moving, if you will, for those of us watching it. >> that we could here, could be

turning into a hostile situation as we understand, that at least the one gunman is still inside this nightclub and he could still kill more people and injure more people and fight off the police, even have to lock them into a negotiation situation for the next several hours. so we don't know what to expect from this. one of the things we're also seeing, as they turkish police forces mobilize in order to try to isolate and subdue this gunman or multiple gunmen, they're also doing their own crowd control against the civilians trying to come in. as you mentioned earlier, richard, the police took pains to cordon off a two-mile radius. it's on the water right by the bosphorus sea, one of the major arching bridgeways that kekds asia with europe in istanbul.

it's also in the middle of istanbul. it just goes to show some of the mounting suspicion that turkish officials have for the media, but also for civilians in its midst. just the other day, turk irk authorities arrested a wall street reporter and held him for 2 1/2 days without lets him alert his family or his newspaper, the "wall street journal," that he had been detained. we've seen the turkish authorities act against members of the media, raiding newspaper offices, detaining journalists sometimes for days at a time like in the case of mr. nissenbaum. so that's something to think about. as this scene develops, we're

starting to get less and less, and we may not expect to get form information, as the climate of silence that's settled over turkey ever since erdogan has felt kind of cornered both by his own domestic political opposition, by this kurdish insurgency, by the war in syria and the fighting. the turkish military is executing a major battle in the town of al bab, which is a major turkish city. they're doing a lot of things on the world stage. they've negotiated a massive -- with the syrian regime. so right now turkey is just very deeply involved in its own neighborhood, its own domestic political situation, is absolutely in at that timers, as president erdogan goes about the business of trying to shut down

newspapers and media, so that's the long-winded answer about whether we're going to be seeing more reports coming out, and whether or not we'll be seeing full transparency. we can already say that turkey was on a posture of suspicion, some may even say paranoia, even a lead-up to this terrible attack. richard? >> definitely very thorough, and very understanding now of not only the statement that was released, that they were going to be slow going, but also that background, the context of the way journalism functions in turkey. one other question, you were mentioning to me earlier that you were recent ly in turkey an also unfortunately lamenting a series of recent attacks. five, six, seven attacks where you had, you know, dozens killed.

this gives you a sense of the major attacks in turkey in the past year, and includes many different environments. how do those in turkey talk about such attacks? how do they talk about terror attacks when they're talking with each other? >> well, here's one of the interesting things, when you're talking about terror attacks and who's perpetrating them, against, isis has launched several of these attacks, authorities are very serious that isis is behind several of the the attacks, ice sit has never really claimed responsibility for any of the attacks inside turkey. they've claimed responsibility for smaller and less well-organized attacks further afield, but never in turkey. and it shows a particular sensitivity of isis towards attacking turkey. and of course turkey has really going after isis ever since they launched operation euphrates shield, about four months ago,

which put turkish forces on the ground in syria, fighting against the same separatists that will also come under suspicion for this attack. there's a decades's long, against knowing the pkk, they have trong allies, sort of ethnic kinmen in northern syria, northern iraq, and elsewhere in the middle east. so the fact that the turkish government is both attacking isis and attacking these kurdish separatists means that anybody could be behind this, and anybody could be trying to launch attacks against a soft target like this one around the holidays. but you know, when people talk about it in turkey, they use a different tone than how the government talks about it. erdogan, who's basically led turkey in one form or another for much of the past decade, he

has been using every terrorist attack in turkey as a pretext to launch a crackdown on any other group that he sees as his own political opposition. some of these attacks that seem to have the indicators of isis being behind them he's blamed on kurdish separatists. one of the most recent attacks, earlier in december that was a bombing that struck mostly police officers outside of a stadium in central istanbul and killed about 38 police officers and wounded some 150 more, erdogan went ahead and already in the last few days blamed it on a social movement that fell out of the favor with, and for a tula gulen is actually now in exile in the united states, erdogan has blamed all sorts of attacks and really political inconveniences on on fatula

guillen and his movement, so now the environment is that erdogan can manipulate everything that happens in turkey for his own political benefit. that's something we may be able to see in the coming hours or days as the dust settles around this really just horrible attack here in the opening hours of the new year. >> nbc's matt bradley with good background on what's happening in istanbul, turkey, how folks are talking about it there on the ground, as well as the larger global local context for us. we'll get back to you a bit later. thank you, we're going to take a short break and have more right after this. say hello to a powerful tool that gives you options to fit your budget. ♪ oh, i'm tied to this chair! ♪ dun-dun-daaaa! i don't know that an insurance-themed comic book is what we're looking for. did i mention he can save people nearly $600?

you haven't even heard my catchphrase. i'm all done with this guy. box him up. that's terrible.

breaking news we're still covering, live pictures, right now 5:46 a.m. local time, january 1st, 2017. this after a terror attack that appears to have happened right after the new year, within the first hour. we're now about four hours into this incident. the latest information we got two hours ago is there was an ongoing holdup of one of the suspects. they have only identified one,

according to our producer on the ground, through security at this location, the reina nightclub, also a restaurant. very quiet, it appears, but this is outside the two-mile cordon that they have put in place around the location of the reina nightclub. you can see some video on the lower right-hand corner from earlier this evening, or early morning their time, but right now, the camera, the live camera on the left-hand side, you do see some of the law enforcement vehicles there on the left and the right, but we don't see the same sort of rush of individuals running away, what happened to be civilians that were moving away from the nightclub, away from that cordon, in an unfortunate situation, where many of them look very emotionally upset. that was, again, two or three hours ago. you can cece that difference of the picture on the right, which

is video from earlier, and the live pictures on the left of what happens to be a quieter earlier morning there in istanbul, and on the right, you know, just two or three hours ago, where so much was happening. jim cavanaugh, i wanted to look at the live pictures, because as we make that distinction of what was happening earlier versus what is happening now, in so many of these tough situations that you and i have talked about over the years, this is how we know what's happening. >> exactly right. exactly right. s.w.a.t.'s in there, and we don't know the current status. we know there's at least one gunman that was kind of normal, but we don't know how many gunmen, and malcolm described earlier in cctv footage. i've look you could at some of that that's circulating. nbc hasn't confirmed nifr that,

but it backs you have the reporting from ayman earlier, that it looks like a shoot er yu know, shooting his way into the club. so that video, we can't verify it, but it's consistent with reporting. >> what was that vehicle that was just leaving in. >> that's an armored -- light armored car that would be used by s.w.a.t. a police vehicle, a police light on the top, a turret that you can shoot gas out of. it's an armored protection vehicle, just driving the perimeter. i think all the action here is inside. they don't want to let the guy escape. that goes to the two-mile

perimeter, richard, that you described before, so you've got to make sure the guy can't get away, you've got to contain him, isolate him, separate him from other innocents that may be inside. you remember the pulse nightclub, we had orlando pd, we had people in the bathrooms, trying to isolate the gunmen, protect people. they smashed a wall with the bearcat armored people to get people out and engage the gunmen, but they're tried to separate them inside. now, if the shooter or shooters are killed, then what happens is -- and what needs to happen, and i'm sure turkish authorities will do, you don't lock it down like a crime scene in a terrorist suspected event like this. you operate differently. you have to go right for the gunman's body, make sure there's not a booby-trap or suicide

vests, or anything like that. then you have to get in there, get his idea, photograph his face, roll hi fingerprints right there, fingerprints delight and get that to your intelligence unit, identification unit if he has a wallet with his name on it, all the better, you can try to goat that quickly. get a cell phone, try to get in there, get all the data. trying to identify, you know, who is he and who is he connected to as you discussed earlier with malcolm. so, it could be any one of these widespread groups or none. but he's associated or they are associated with someone, confederate's name, family, co-workers, fellow terrorists. you have to locate those people and drive that investigation home. even if they're killed, quickly, make sure there's not a booby trap, go right to the id. photograph them, that photograph's got to get to all the turkish police, worldwide intelligence units. it's got to get to the european

authorities, fingerprints, his identification on him. exploit his electronic devices as quickly as can be done. to make sure that, you know, there's not a follow-on attack. avenging turkey with all the gifts tonight. sometimes drives people to act or inspire them to act, and of course as this is on the worldwide stage. that's what law enforcement is looking at across the world. >> yeah. >> and jonathan deeds talked about, you know here we have the largest police force in new york, nypd, they're nimble. that's something to be proud of. we have a nimble force. those commanders are to be applauded for that nimbleness to move those units in response to worldwide events, all law enforcement used to learn a lesson. if the biggest force can be that nimble, we all can be that nimble. we have to not look at just the

last attack, a truck attack, you have to be prepared for every attack, as smart commanders are. it's good that the nypd is doing that. and i'm sure it's being done around the world. >> jim, stand by. great point there. i want to bring "new york times" reporter in. you cover this region, what are you hearing? anything new in terms of the information coming out of this unfortunate terror attack? >> nothing new for the moment. what sing worth noting however is that the islamic state in recent weeks has really upped the ante in terms of threats against turkey. in recent weeks, we've seen al-baghdadi, the head of the terrorist group itself calling for attacks on turkey. his spokesman also called for attacks on turkey, and just a couple of days ago, the foundation which is a channel on

a telegram linked for isis again called for attacks on turkey. >> is this a response, a result there of turkish forces being deployed to fight against isis? >> isis has certainly positived this in their threats against turkey. this is retaliation against the crusader coalition. the crusader coalition includes everybody from the united states to now turkey, and all of the other world entities that are fighting the islamic state. >> when you're looking at the environment here of turkey, what is the footnote if this is isis-related? what is the -- yeah. >> the note fofootnote is that s not claimed attacks that has caused mass casualties in turkey. analysts have argued that this might be because turkey is a majority sunni country.

we saw the same dynamic in bangladesh where the terror group has only claimed attacks that was very targeted. that were essentially assassination attempts on enemies of -- what they call enemies of islam. activists who are speaking out against the group. religious minorities, et cetera. most importantly we didn't see isis claim the istanbul airport attack a couple of months ago. even though officials are pretty much certain that that was isis and it was an attack that of course tragically killed numerous people. >> what is interesting about this of note, which you know since you cover this area, is that the nightclub that we're watching live pictures coming out of this two-mile cordon around the nightclub. we see vehicles leaving. if you look at the travel sites and they describe the different locations you would go to as a tourist. it is one of those upscale

locations. the place to go to to be seen at if you are young, upscale, if you're one of those those from the "it" group, and yet at the same time, this is the place that, according to some of the reporting from our nbc correspondent who also covers this area was saying, they knew that this was potentially going to be a target. what do you know about reina nightclub and what that might mean in terms of the point that might be made by attacking this location? >> right. i don't know reina nightclub specifically, but the fact that it is a nightclub is significant in the context of former jihadists attacks. nightclubs by definition are the groups or legitimate target. even if a child dies inside of a nightclub, to them, in their eyes, that was a legitimate killing because this is a den of unislamic beheir and especially

of alcohol drinking. so recent examples that you are viewers are familiar with would be the bataclan attack in paris. and it was a nightclub and a similar situation to here. so, of course, it's way too early to say that this is isis. we don't know if this is isis. in this theater, authorities are usually toggling between two groups, between isis and between an offshoot of the pkk, a kurdish insurgency. the kurdish group have not targeted in general areas that have large civilian populations. they have tended to hone their attacks against security targets, not always, but in general. the fact that it is a nightclub makes you start thinking, makes the arrow towards a jihadist group more likely. >> okay.

great. thank you so much, "new york times" reporter. covers that region, thank you so much. we'll have more on this breaking story out of istanbul right after this at the top of the hour.

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blan. good evening to you. breaking news coming out of turkey where it's now 6:01 a.m. local time. it is january 1, 2017 in istanbul, turkey, and fortunately the headline is a terror attack according to to the governor of istanbul. that happened within the first hour of the new year. at this moment, at least 35 dead, at least 40 wounded. of those dead, one is a law enforcement officer of those who are wounded, ten critical. this information to us within the last three hours. we've been waiting for