Police in Istanbul on Sunday announced the capture of a suspect who taught fellow members of the terrorist group Daesh how to build bombs.
Media outlets identified the suspect as 34-year-old Syrian national R.H., who was infiltrated into Türkiye from Qamishli in Syria before his capture on Oct. 3.
Counterterrorism police said R.H. built bombs for the terrorist group and a search of digital evidence in his possession showed videos of the suspect training Daesh members how to use oxygen cylinders and pipes to build bombs. Authorities are now investigating his connections in Türkiye and whether he was planning to carry out a bomb attack in the country.
Türkiye has been rounding up Daesh-linked suspects in ramped-up operations since the terrorist group attacked a church during a Sunday Mass earlier in January.
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.
Daesh operates a so-called Khorasan Province (Daesh-K) network in Türkiye, which looks for "new methods" and recruits more foreign members for its activities after constant counterterrorism operations became a "challenge," security sources say.
Last week, a Turkish prosecutor disclosed charges against suspected Daesh terrorists who were apprehended in Istanbul earlier this year. Eight suspects are accused of plotting a bomb attack on the Israeli Consulate in the city. The suspects initially intended to target several spots in Istanbul’s busy Taksim district, including during Labor Day celebrations on May 1, but their essential target was the Israeli Consulate, as per a Daesh book of attack strategies, according to the prosecutor’s indictment released last Wednesday.
