İbrahim Fadli, the twin brother of Nabil Fadli, a Syrian suicide bomber, was arrested in the northwestern Turkish province of Kocaeli yesterday for membership of Daesh. Nabil Fadli blew himself up among a group of German tourists in Istanbul's Sultanahmet Square on Jan. 12, 2016 and killed 12 German nationals.
Counterterrorism units in the province, which neighbors Istanbul, stormed a residential building in the district of Derince after a tip-off said Daesh militants were hiding there. Along with 31-year-old Fadli, another Syrian national identified by his initials A.B. was also captured. A local court remanded the duo into custody.
Media outlets reported that the two suspects trained in Daesh camps in Syria in 2012 and later snuck into Turkey.
Daesh killed scores of people when the group started targeting Turkey in 2013 with attacks on rallies, Istanbul's main airport, a popular nightclub in the city and other venues. 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 nine 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 are being monitored for links to the terrorist group at airports upon arrival.
In January, Istanbul's 14th High Criminal Court had sentenced three accomplices of Nabil Fadli to aggravated life imprisonment. Atala El Hasan El Mayyuf, Fevzi Muhammed Ali and Turkish national Halil Derviş were separately handed 329 years in prison each for the attack.
In court proceedings, it was stated that Mayyuf, Ali and Derviş organized the terrorist act, ordering Nabil Fadil to detonate a bomb attached to his body. An indictment into the attack had said that the defendants helped smuggle the bomb and the suicide bomber across the Syrian border into Turkey one month ahead of the attack.