Authorities announced yesterday that they detained N.U., an Uzbek national whose only initials were revealed, at Istanbul's Atatürk Airport. The suspect was wanted for membership of the terrorist group Daesh. He was trying to board a flight to an unspecified destination with a forged passport. A court ordered his imprisonment until trial.
Daesh started targeting Turkey in 2013 by attacking rallies, a main airport in Istanbul, a popular nightclub and other venues, killing scores of people. Embattled by counterterrorism operations in Syria and Iraq, the terrorist group has seen its numbers further dwindling with heightened crackdowns in Turkey. In the past eight months, security forces detained more than 5,400 suspects and arrested more than 900 others in operations, while another 146 Daesh militants were "neutralized" in the same period.
Since November 2017, Turkey has stopped more than 5,040 foreigners seeking to join Daesh by crossing into Syria and Iraq through Turkey and sent them back to their countries of origin. Security forces have also foiled 10 attack plots. Figures show that some 18,500 suspects were being monitored for links to the terrorist group at airports upon their arrivals.
