Turkish security forces nabbed a suspected high-ranking Daesh member in its northern Sakarya province on Wednesday.
According to a statement by the Interior Ministry, an operation was carried out under the coordination of the General Directorate of Security Intelligence Branch and Anti-Terrorism Department (TEM). The units have been investigating Daesh networks inside the country for a long time and earlier they discovered that the alleged Jordanian Daesh terrorist with the initials A.Z.A.A.D. was hiding in Sakarya. He was detained by police, becoming another high-ranking Daesh member captured in current operations.
Security forces revealed that the suspect acted as the so-called "deputy minister of education," responsible for all of the terrorist group's educational institutions in regional Daesh strongholds in Iraq and Syria from 2014-2017.
Authorities also indicated that A.Z.A.A.D. allegedly published images of people that were brutally killed by Daesh in support of the group’s propaganda.
The suspected terrorist was referred to the courthouse after his interrogation at a police station and arrested.
Security forces have carried out numerous anti-terrorism operations against the Daesh network in recent months. In mid-January, police and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) detained a Daesh terrorist who provided the group explosives for several suicide attacks – including one that killed 12 German citizens in Istanbul's Sultanahmet in January 2016 and the bombing in Suruç, located across the border from the northern Syrian town of Ain al-Arab (Kobani), that killed 33 and wounded another 86 people in July 2015.
Mahmut Özden, who went by the codename Abu Hamzi, the terrorist group's alleged “Turkey emir,” was detained in an operation in southern Adana province in September. That same month, the so-called Daesh head of Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakır was apprehended by the provincial police department’s counterterrorism unit.
Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Daesh as a terrorist group in 2013, as soon as it emerged.
The country has since been attacked by Daesh numerous times, including 10 suicide bombings, seven bombings and four armed assaults that killed 315 people and injured hundreds of others.
In response, Turkey launched military and police operations at home and abroad to prevent further terrorist attacks.
