Türkiye is now in possession of a valued database of the Daesh terrorist group, containing names and information about 9,952 "lone wolf" terrorists after a successful operation carried out in the past months by police in Istanbul.

The Sabah newspaper gained access to the details of the operation that started in a cafe in Istanbul and ended with the capture of a suspect in possession of the database at Istanbul Airport.

The existence of the database, which contains biographical information about lone wolf terrorists, from their skills to their residence and ID information, its existence was known to most intelligence agencies from the CIA and MI6 to Mossad. Intelligence agencies assigned 40 agents in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan to track down the database known to be in possession of Daesh members in those countries.

The database was first in possession of Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who was killed on Oct. 27, 2019. The U.S. agents scoured the area where al-Baghdadi was killed in Syria in an operation but discovered it was long gone and was now in possession of al-Baghdadi’s successor Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi.

In the meantime, intelligence and counterterrorism units of Istanbul police, carrying out operations against Daesh, discovered a suspicious conversation among intelligence targets they were wiretapping. They found an imminent "exchange" of a "cargo" belonging to Daesh, though they were not aware of the contents. The conversation between a foreign fighter of Daesh and his local collaborators led to a further surveillance operation.

According to a report by Abdurrahman Soğuksu, counterterrorism director of Istanbul police, the database was the topic of a conversation between Mehmet Çelik, Zeyneddin Çalışkan, Hikmet Aliyev, Seymur Rzayev and Ilyas Yıldırım who convened at a cafe. The men, with ties to Iranian intelligence, were speaking about a "digital cargo" on sale by Daesh members who stole it from the terrorist group’s leadership and discussed how to obtain it for Iranian intelligence. Turkish surveillance revealed that Daesh members in possession of the database negotiated the sale of the database to five men, unaware of their connection with Iranian intelligence, for a price of 8.5 million euros ($9.33 million). The sides agreed upon delivery of the database in Istanbul and after months of negotiations, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence (VAJA) told the men that it was ready to pay the price, after seeing a "preview" of the database.

A Daesh courier arrived in Istanbul for the sale while Istanbul police launched the operation. The courier was intercepted at the arrivals terminal of Istanbul Airport and the database was found in his possession. Police also detained five men working for Iranian intelligence. Seymur Rzayev is an Azerbaijan citizen of Iranian origin and was involved in a secret project for the development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in Iran while Aliyev, an Iranian national, operates a cargo company between Türkiye and Turkic countries. Çalışkan and Çelik, also businessmen, were working for supplying spare parts for Iran’s strategic defense projects.

Bloody trail

The database was the central piece of an international hunt for a long time as it contained all the information about lone wolf terrorists from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria and Spain who were members of Daesh sleeper cells across the world.

Al-Qurashi, who was aware that foreign intelligence agencies were looking for it, decided to send it to another country. But the courier he assigned with the delivery found out about the content of the database and decided to sell it. He disappeared but was located by Daesh members. He claimed he lost the database and did not confess, despite the terrorist group’s interrogators cutting off both his feet. The terrorist group’s leadership did not believe that the database was simply lost and pursued potential suspects they thought stole the database. Eventually, they executed a Daesh member in Uzbekistan and two others in Syria as they were suspected of theft. But they failed to locate the precious list of lone wolf terrorists.

Lone wolf attacks are the most sinister threat of Daesh, which lost territory it seized in Iraq and Syria as its clout waned amid counterterrorism operations in those two countries. Lone wolves of Daesh are responsible for the killing of 50 people on June 12, 2016, at a Florida nightclub and the killing of 84 people in France’s Nice when a truck plowed through a crowd. In Türkiye, Abdulkadir Masharipov, a lone wolf of Kyrgyz origin, slaughtered 39 people in a popular Istanbul nightclub as revelers gathered to welcome the New Year on Jan. 1, 2017.

In 2013, Türkiye became one of the first countries to declare Daesh a terrorist group. The country has since been attacked by Daesh multiple times, with over 300 people killed and hundreds more injured in at least 10 suicide bombings, seven bomb attacks and four armed assaults. As a result, Türkiye launched operations at home and abroad to prevent further attacks, including several counterterrorism operations in Syria.

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 by their roots.

Since its formal defeat in Iraq in 2017 and significant loss of territory in Syria since 2015, Daesh fighters have been leading their operations underground besides losing their leaders to military operations. The group’s last three leaders, all Iraqis, were killed in Syria in recent years outside areas it once purported to rule.

The last Daesh leader, Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the successor of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi who committed suicide during a U.S. raid earlier in 2022, was killed in mid-October last year by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in southern Syria, as confirmed by the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). The group’s founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was hunted down by the Americans in a raid in Idlib in October 2019. Remaining Daesh militants, whose numbers reach thousands, mostly hide in remote territory across the region but still possess the ability to carry out significant insurgent-style attacks.