Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has caught 19 Daesh terrorists in northern Syria that were preparing for a terrorist attack.
According to security sources speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), a special cell was established by Daesh to conduct terrorist attacks on Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) personnel and Turkish institutions in Syria.
With MIT’s intelligence and operational support, local forces like the Syrian National Army have carried out operations in the Operation Euphrates Shield and Peace Spring areas.
During these operations, 19 terrorists, one of them dead, were caught while a cache of explosives, weapons and ammunition were seized.
The arrested terrorist members admitted planning attacks on Turkish forces, following the daily routines of vehicles belonging to the TSK and conducting four attacks on TSK vehicles in August and September.
After a meteoric rise in 2014 in Iraq and Syria that saw it conquer vast swathes of territory, Daesh saw its self-proclaimed "caliphate" collapse under a wave of offensives.
It was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, but sleeper cells of the extremist group still carry out attacks in both countries.
In 2013, Türkiye 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, Türkiye launched counterterrorism operations at home and abroad to prevent further attacks.
Friday's operation comes a day after it was reported on Thursday that MIT has caught three PKK terrorists in an operation in northern Syria.
The three terrorists were planning an attack on security forces in areas cleared of terrorism in northern Syria and were heading to the Amanos Mountains along a route that included Tal Rifaat, Azaz, Afrin, Kilis and the village of Gülbaba.
Ferhad Edemen, code-named “Adnan Piro,” Ozan Tunç, code-named “Bahtiyar,” and Mehmet Kaykır, code-named “Çem Riha,” left Tal Rifaat and entered the Operation Euphrates Shield area.
The terrorists were brought to the entrance of Afrin city center by undercover Syrian National Army (SNA) members posing as militants, after which MIT caught the three terrorists, who were in possession of weapons, on the road from Afrin to Azaz.
