Crime & Justice

Turkey detains 147 Islamic State suspects in nationwide operations

Ankara, Mar 26 (EFE).- Turkish police have detained at least 147 alleged members of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in several operations conducted across the country, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Tuesday.

“In the simultaneous operations ‘BOZDOGAN-17’ conducted against the ISIS terrorist organization in 30 provinces, 147 suspects were captured,” Yerlikaya said in a statement on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

The detainees were accused of participating in terrorist activities under the IS, including armed actions in conflict zones, and providing financial support to the organization. However, the minister did not disclose the identities and nationalities of the suspects.

Yerlikaya said that the police had also seized “a large amount of foreign currency, organizational documents, and digital materials” during the operations.

The counter-terror operations came a few days after the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a concert hall near Moscow that killed 137 people and injured another over 180 on Mar. 22.

Media reported that at least two of the four alleged Tajik perpetrators of the Moscow attack, detained by Russian police, had transited through Turkey.

According to the Turkish state news agency Anadolu, the suspects had been residing in Moscow for some time and had also briefly traveled to Turkey, using their passports.

Turkish police frequently conduct operations against IS networks, as the extremist group has been active in the Eurasian country.

Since June last year, the Turkish police have conducted around 1,329 operations against IS networks, leading to the detention of nearly 3,000 suspects, according to the interior ministry.

The most recent IS attack in Turkey occurred on Jan. 28, targeting the Italian Catholic church of Santa Maria in Istanbul, resulting in one fatality and several injuries. EFE

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