Turkish police have detained 27 suspected members of the Daesh terrorist group in a countrywide operation, authorities said Tuesday.
The Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in western Izmir province seeks the arrest of 30 suspects in total across 13 cities, including Istanbul, central Konya and eastern Bitlis province.
Police are looking for the remaining three suspects, authorities said.
The operation follows other mass detentions, including 283 people in total last month and another 147 people announced in March.
Since the 2019 collapse of the self-proclaimed "caliphate," some suspected Daesh members have settled in Türkiye, operating a so-called Khorasan Province (Daesh-K) network, which looks for "new methods" and recruits more foreign members for its activities after constant counterterrorism operations became a "challenge.”
The National Intelligence Organization (MIT) thwarted the terrorist group's efforts for recruitment, obtaining funds and logistics support after its latest operation in the aftermath of a church shooting in Istanbul in January.
Turkish authorities said that since June 2023, more than 3,600 people with suspected ties to the terrorist group have been arrested.
Two of the assailants who massacred 145 people at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow last March, an attack for which Daesh claimed responsibility, had spent several weeks in Türkiye before heading to Russia, according to local authorities.
Daesh remains the second biggest threat of terrorism for Türkiye, which faces security risks from multiple terrorist groups and was one of the first countries to declare it as a terrorist group in 2013.
In December last year, Turkish security forces detained 32 suspects over alleged links with Daesh, who were planning attacks on churches and synagogues, as well as the Iraqi Embassy.
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.
Turkish authorities have ordered the freezing of millions of lira worth of assets since 2013 to crack down on terrorism financiers in line with U.N. sanctions.
Türkiye has increasingly been working to cut off and prevent the financing of terrorism, a pillar of the fight against terrorism worldwide. In the past 11 years, it has frozen the assets of 1,918 individuals and organizations, according to official figures compiled by the Anadolu Agency (AA).
