Turkish Security authorities detained 105 Daesh terrorism suspects in operations that were implemented across 23 provinces, said Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.
Yerlikaya informed that operations were conducted between 19-27 March by Provincial Police Departments and Provincial Gendarmerie Commands, coordinated under the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor and Gendarmerie General Command, the Counter-Terrorism Department (TEM), and other security forces.
Yerlikaya explained that the suspects were Daesh members, were offering financial support to the terrorist group, and in addition, had also been engaged in Daesh propaganda on social media handles. Additionally, the documents of the terrorist group and online material were seized.
Our operations against terror organizations, which we undertake day and night, 365 days a year, go on unbrokenly in order to bring peace and stability to each region of our country,” the minister added.
Daesh continues to be the second largest terror threat for Türkiye, which has security threats posed by several terrorist groups and was among the first to announce that it was a terror organization in 2013.
Turkey has been the target of numerous major Daesh-claimed attacks, such as a 2017 nightclub attack that resulted in dozens of fatalities. In January 2024, two Daesh terrorists fired at an Istanbul church, killing one individual. Additional casualties were avoided when the terrorists’ guns jammed.
Türkiye’s guarded optimism regarding any efforts to bring an end to terrorism made itself felt once more after the new Syrian rulers made a deal with the SDF, an umbrella organization led by the PKK/YPG terror organization. Similar to its own “terror-free Türkiye” process, Türkiye makes cautious moves toward the result of processes independent of counterterrorism actions.
Turkish Defense Ministry officials stated that they would observe how the deal would unfold, its impact in the field, and the positive and negative output as a result of the deal before further evaluation.
Sources added that Türkiye’s determination in counterterrorism persisted and that there were no shifts in its demands for terrorist activity to stop in Syria, for terrorists to put down weapons and for foreign terrorists to depart from Syria, just as there were no shifts in Türkiye’s support to Syria to secure its territorial and political integrity. In a separate statement, the Defense Ministry said that 24 terrorists were killed by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) last week, and 502 PKK terrorists were neutralized in operations in Syria and Iraq, a PKK terrorism hotbed, since Jan. 1.
