Turkish authorities captured 89 suspects linked to the Daesh terrorist group in countrywide operations, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced Wednesday.
The operations were conducted in Antalya, Batman, Denizli, Elazığ, Eskişehir, Gaziantep, Hatay, Istanbul, Kahramanmaraş, Kırıkkale, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, Sakarya, Şanlıurfa, Van and Yozgat provinces.
The suspects are charged with membership in the terrorist group, Yerlikaya said.
“We uninterruptedly continue our operations against terrorist organizations to ensure the peace and stability of our people,” he added.
Turkish authorities have intensely targeted Daesh cells with operations dubbed “Gürz,” detaining at least 943 suspects in 2024 alone.
Since the 2019 collapse of the self-proclaimed “caliphate,” some suspected Daesh members have settled in Türkiye, operating a so-called Khorasan Province (Daesh-K) network, which looks for “new methods” and recruits more foreign nationals for its activities after constant counterterrorism operations became a “challenge,” according to Turkish security sources.
The National Intelligence Organization (MIT) thwarted the terrorist group’s efforts for recruitment, obtaining funds and logistics support after its latest operation in the aftermath of a church shooting in Istanbul in January.
Turkish authorities said that since June 2023, more than 3,600 people with suspected ties to the terrorist group have been arrested.
Daesh remains the second biggest threat of terrorism for Türkiye, which faces security risks from multiple terrorist groups and was one of the first countries to declare it as a terrorist group in 2013.
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