The Foreign Ministry announced that Türkiye and the U.S. have taken joint action to freeze the assets of a Daesh-related network.
"Today, Türkiye and the United States decided to take a joint action on freezing the assets of 5 individuals and 2 legal persons who have been identified to finance the DAESH terrorist organization," the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
The statement continued by saying that Ankara will continue to take effective steps to counter terrorism financing and cooperate with international partners regarding the issue.
The Treasury slapped sanctions on a Syrian, Abd Al Hamid Salim Ibrahim Ismail Brukan al-Khatuni, and his two sons for running what it called the Daesh's foreign financing arm.
Using a money transfer service in Mersin, Türkiye, they helped arrange the transfer of $500,000 to the terrorist group in June 2021, the Treasury said.
A fourth person, Lu'ay Jasim Hammadi al-Juburi worked with them to move money for Daesh between Türkiye, Iraq and Syria through another company, Sham Express.
Daesh terrorist operatives "also used Sham Express to support the smuggling of gold from Syria and Sudan via Iraq, Egypt, and Libya to generate additional revenue," the Treasury said.
In support of the U.S. sanctions, Türkiye's Ministry of Treasury and Finance and Ministry of Interior have placed an asset freeze on members of the Daesh finance network.
"These designations and accompanying asset freezes are a result of close coordination and collaboration with our Turkish partners to target IS activity in the region," said Treasury Under Secretary Brian Nelson in a statement, using an alternative acronym for the Daesh terrorist group.
Türkiye was one of the first countries to declare Daesh a terrorist group in 2013.
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, Ankara launched counterterrorism operations at home and abroad to prevent further attacks, eliminating nearly 17,000 terrorists from both Daesh and the PKK/YPG over the course of six years.
The Daesh terrorist group emerged from the chaos of the civil war in neighboring Syria last decade and took over vast swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014. Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself "caliph" of all Muslims from a mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that year.
Daesh's brutal rule, during which it killed and executed thousands of people in the name of its perverted interpretation of religion, came to an end in Mosul when Iraqi and international forces defeated the group there in 2017.
Its remaining thousands of militants have in recent years mostly hidden out in remote territory but are still able to carry out insurgent-style attacks.
