Turkish security forces have apprehended a Daesh terrorist identified as a fugitive on Interpol’s Red Notice list, the country’s National Defense Ministry announced on Monday.
The terrorist, only known by the initials M.M., was attempting to infiltrate Türkiye through the southeastern Hatay province bordering Syria when the security forces received the report, the ministry informed on Twitter.
The terrorist was captured in a joint operation between the gendarmerie teams and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), the ministry said.
Terrorists from both Daesh and the PKK/YPG groups often make attempts to cross Türkiye’s southeastern border, aiming to carry out violent attacks and collect funds through hidden connections in the country. In response, Ankara has been intensifying its crackdown on both the terrorists and their links at home, conducting pinpoint operations and freezing assets in a bid to cut the legs out from under the terrorist groups.
Daesh emerged from the chaos of the civil war in neighboring Syria in the last decade and took over vast swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself "caliph" of all Muslims from a mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that year.
Daesh's brutal rule, during which it killed and executed thousands of people in the name of its perverted interpretation of religion, came to an end in Mosul when Iraqi and international forces defeated the group there in 2017.
Its remaining thousands of militants have in recent years mostly hidden out in remote territory but are still able to carry out significant insurgent-style attacks.
Türkiye was one of the first countries to declare Daesh a terrorist group in 2013.
It has since been attacked by the terrorist group multiple times, with over 300 people killed and hundreds more injured in at least 10 suicide bombings, seven bomb attacks and four armed assaults. To foil the threat, Ankara launched counterterrorism operations at home and abroad to prevent further attacks, eliminating nearly 17,000 terrorists from both Daesh and the PKK/YPG over the course of six years.