Turkish police on Monday captured 22 foreign nationals in operations against the Daesh terrorist group in the capital Ankara.
The operations were a culmination of an investigation into suspects accused of having links to Daesh terrorists in “conflict zones,” namely Syria where the group still remains active. Some suspects had traveled to the said “conflict zones” in the past years, media outlets reported.
An unspecified number of suspects wanted in the investigation remain at large. Suspects are classified as “foreign terrorist fighters” by security forces, which means they will be deported to their countries of origin after interrogation.
In 2013, Türkiye became one of the first countries to declare Daesh a terrorist group. However, the country has since been attacked by Daesh multiple times, with over 300 people killed and hundreds more injured in at least 10 suicide bombings, seven bomb attacks and four armed assaults.
As a result, Türkiye launched operations at home and abroad to prevent further attacks, including several counterterrorism operations in Syria.
Terrorists from Daesh and other groups such as the PKK and its Syrian wing, the YPG, rely on a network of members and supporters in Türkiye. In response, Ankara has been intensifying its crackdown on the terrorists and their links at home, conducting pinpoint operations and freezing assets to eliminate the roots of terrorist groups.
Türkiye deported 9,000 foreign terrorist fighters, mainly from Daesh, from 102 different nationalities, of which 1,168 are from the U.S. or European Union member countries since 2011. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Romania, Sweden and Austria were the leading EU countries in terms of deported foreign terrorists. The issue of handling Daesh terrorists and their families detained in Syria, including foreign members of the terror group, has been controversial, with Türkiye arguing foreign-born terrorists should be returned to their countries of origin. Ankara has said several European countries resisted its efforts of sending Daesh terror group members to their countries, but it will press forward.
Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, nearly 5,000 foreign fighters have traveled from the EU to conflict areas in Syria and Iraq, according to estimates by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, better known as Europol. Since its formal defeat in Iraq in 2017 and significant loss of territory in Syria since 2015, Daesh fighters have been leading their operations underground, besides losing their leaders to military operations. The group’s last three leaders, all Iraqis, were killed in Syria in recent years outside the areas it once purported to rule.
