Turkish authorities detained 70 suspects linked to the Daesh terrorist group in the nationwide Operation Heroes, the Interior Ministry said Thursday.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on social media that large amounts of money, digital material and receipts for hawala banking transactions were also discovered in the raids. Hawala is an informal money transfer system that is traditionally used in some parts of the Muslim world.
A video accompanying Yerlikaya’s post showed vehicles sweeping out of police stations and armed officers in military gear raiding addresses, followed by searches and arrests.
In late December, Turkish security forces detained 32 suspected Daesh militants that Anadolu Agency (AA) reported were allegedly planning attacks on synagogues, churches and the Iraqi Embassy. A week earlier, police rounded up 304 suspected Daesh terrorists in simultaneous raids across Türkiye in what appeared to be a security sweep leading up to the New Year's festivities.
Daesh controlled one-third of Iraq and Syria at its 2014 peak. Though beaten back, it continues to wage attacks.
It remains the second biggest threat of terrorism for Türkiye, which faces security risks from multiple terrorist groups. In 2013, Türkiye became one of the first countries to declare Daesh a terrorist group.
The group has carried out a string of deadly attacks in Türkiye over the last decade, including on Jan. 1, 2017, that killed 39 people during New Year's celebrations and the bombing of a peace march in Ankara in October 2015 that killed some 105 people.
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. In response, Ankara has been intensifying its crackdown on the terrorists and their links at home, conducting pinpoint operations and freezing assets to eliminate the terrorist groups from their roots.
Türkiye deported 9,000 foreign terrorist fighters, mainly from Daesh, from 102 different nationalities, of which 1,168 are from the U.S. or the European Union member countries, since 2011.
France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Romania, Sweden and Austria were the leading EU countries in terms of deported foreign terrorists.
