Security forces detained 11 Daesh-linked suspects in counterterrorism operations in Turkey’s capital Ankara on Thursday.
Ankara police squads launched an operation against 15 foreign suspects and carried out raids at dawn, Demirören News Agency (DHA) reported. The suspects were taken to nearby hospitals to undergo health checks, the report added.
Police are still looking for the remaining four suspects.
In 2013, Turkey became one of the first countries to declare Daesh a terrorist group.
The country 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.
In response, Turkey launched anti-terror operations at home and abroad to prevent further attacks.
In May, Ankara arrested a Daesh terrorist identified as the right-hand man of former terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Al-Baghdadi was killed in a U.S. military operation in Syria in 2019. Reports said that Turkish intelligence played a key role in the death of al-Baghdadi by detaining and extraditing one of his aides to Iraq, who then provided U.S. authorities with critical information to help locate the vicious man.
Turkish security forces have nabbed at least 850 suspects with links to Daesh in the first three months of 2021, dealing a heavy blow to the terrorist group's presence in the country and its activities in the region.
