Turkey arrests some 400 ISIS suspects in nationwide raids

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Turkish police Sunday detained hundreds of suspected members of ISIS in nationwide raids, just over a month after an attack on an Istanbul nightclub claimed by the terrorists.

Among around 400 detained in the biggest operation so far against ISIS after the New Year attack were foreigners and those suspected of planning attacks in Turkey, the Dogan and Anadolu news agencies reported.

The operation around the country saw 150 suspects detained in Sanliurfa in the southeast and 47 in the nearby city of Gaziantep close to the Syrian border which has a known terrorists presence, Dogan said.

Sixty suspects, mostly foreigners, were detained in four districts in the capital Ankara.

Dozens more arrests were made in provinces ranging from Bursa in the west to Bingol in the east.

In the usually peaceful Aegean city of Izmir, nine people suspected of travelling to and from Syria and planning attacks in the city were detained, Anadolu said.

Eighteen people were detained in Istanbul and the neighboring province of Kocaeli on suspicion of planning attacks. Another 14 foreigners were due to be deported, including 10 children.

Thirty-nine people were killed, mainly foreigners, on New Year's night when a gunman went on the rampage inside a plush Istanbul night club.

ISIS claimed the massacre, its first clear claim for a major attack in Turkey although it had been blamed for several bombings in 2016.

Police detained the suspected attacker, Abdulgadir Masharipov, an Uzbek national, on Jan. 16 after over two weeks on the run and authorities say he has confessed to the massacre.

The Hurriyet daily reported after the attack that ISIS also planned a simultaneous New Year's strike in Ankara but dropped the plot after arrests by the Turkish authorities.

Turkey has been carrying out military operations in neighboring Syria since August last year in a declared mission against Daesh. The operations have not been sanctioned by the Damascus government, and observers believe they are more intended against Kurdish forces — who are themselves fighting Daesh — than against the terrorist group itself.

Turkey considers the armed Kurdish groups as “terrorists.”




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