Turkey arrests 110 suspected Daesh members in nationwide raids
Turkish police on Tuesday arrested 110 suspected members of the Daesh terrorist group in operations across Istanbul, Bursa, and another city. The suspects are accused of running recruitment classes, training minors, collecting funds for imprisoned Daesh convicts, and promoting the group through propaganda and banned publications. The raids follow a similar operation last week that netted 324 suspects across 47 provinces.
Turkish police on Tuesday arrested 110 suspected members of the Daesh terrorist group in operations across Istanbul, Bursa and another city, authorities said.
Counterterrorism and intelligence units launched raids targeting suspects who ran "classes" for potential Daesh recruits in illegal associations, trained minors on the group's ideology, and collected funds for Daesh convicts in prisons, according to a statement from the Chief Prosecutor's Office in Istanbul. The suspects were also involved in propaganda activities and sold books and magazines promoting Daesh. Police seized four rifles, 90 cartridges and banned Daesh publications during the operations.
The Chief Prosecutor's Office said an investigation identified two suspects, Ishak Baysal and Tekin Ireç, as assuming "leadership" of the network. Prosecutors said so-called "masjids" in Istanbul's Sultanbeyli, Kartal and Sancaktepe districts were used to train children. The suspects collected cash from donors under the names of fitr and zakat — Islamic terms associated with charity — to aid families of imprisoned Daesh suspects. "The suspects were involved in radical discourse calling for so-called jihad and declared any faction other than Daesh as infidels and insulted the state and the government for carrying out counterterrorism operations," the office stated.
Last week, police arrested 324 people in raids targeting Daesh suspects across 47 provinces, the Interior Ministry said. The latest operation follows a series of recent attacks linked to the group. On April 7, a gunman was killed and two others wounded in a shootout outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul. Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi said one of the gunmen was linked to an "organization that exploits religion," which Turkish media reported was Daesh. At the end of December, Daesh terrorists opened fire on police in the northwestern town of Yalova, killing three officers and wounding nine others. Six Daesh members were killed in the ensuing gun battle, and Turkey rounded up more than 600 suspected members in the following weeks.