Key Takeaways
- Turkish security forces detained 28 IS suspects in a major operation across nine provinces in the country.
- The operation, called Operation Heroes-46, was conducted in provinces including Sakarya, Denizli, Ankara, Adana, Duzce, Bursa, Gaziantep, Istanbul, and Yalova.
- The Turkish government has been cracking down on IS activities in the country since 2013, when it designated the group as a terrorist organisation.
Ankara: Turkish police have detained 28 suspects affiliated with the Islamic State (IS), a cabinet minister said on Thursday.
The suspects were captured as part of “Operation Heroes-46” across nine provinces in the country, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The police teams seized a large amount of foreign currency and Turkish lira during simultaneous raids, he said.
The operations were conducted in the provinces of Sakarya, Denizli, Ankara, Adana, Duzce, Bursa, Gaziantep, Istanbul, and Yalova, he added.
Video footage posted on the Turkish minister’s X account showed police entering apartments and buildings and putting suspects into vehicles.
In 2013, the Turkish government designated the IS as a terrorist organisation, blaming it for a spate of deadly attacks in the country since 2015.
In December last year, Turkish intelligence and security forces captured a top IS terrorist in charge of the group’s finances in an operation in Turkey’s southeastern province of Mersin.
Turkey’s southern border with Syria has been a significant crossing point for Syrians and foreign fighters since the war broke out in Syria in 2011.
