Police in northwestern Turkey's Sakarya detained seven Iraqi nationals in an operation against the terrorist group Daesh Tuesday.
A local court later put six of the detainees under arrest. Among those arrested is a suspect identified as the "former Aleppo governor" for the terrorist group, which claimed to set up a self-styled "Islamic State" in Iraq and Syria.
Suspects were captured in simultaneous raids by counterterrorism police across the province located near Istanbul. One suspect was released under judiciary control. Daesh is blamed for a string of terror attacks in Turkey over the past few years. Its latest major attack was in the early hours of 2017 when a lone gunman stormed a popular nightclub in Istanbul and gunned down 39 people. The gunman, Uzbek-born Abdulgadir Masharipov, was captured in Istanbul a few weeks after the attack. The terrorist group saw a decline in membership as it lost large swathes of land it once controlled in Iraq and Syria. Militants now flee abroad and occasionally end up in Turkey where they infiltrate into from its lengthy border with Syria. Last month, 36 Daesh suspects were remanded in custody, while some 87 others were arrested for their links to the group.
Some 2,000 Daesh suspects were arrested and 7,000 others were deported in operations against Daesh in Turkey, while around 70,000 people were denied entry to Turkey over their suspected links to the terrorist group.
Security forces have also foiled dozens of terrorist attack plots. Figures show that some 18,500 suspects are currently being monitored for links to the terrorist group after being flagged at airports upon arrival.
