Turkiye’s government disclosed that it has detained more 125 suspected Islamic State members in nationwide raids, as the group shows signs of intensified regional activity after a period of relative dormancy.
Turkey’s Interior Minister, Ali Yerlikaya announced the arrests in a social media post, saying that Turkish authorities rounded up 125 suspects across 25 provinces.
Yerlikaya said that today’s raids were coordinated by police and gendarmerie forces and were carried out in cities including Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa and Yalova.
“Those who seek to harm our brotherhood, our unity, our togetherness … will only face the might of our state and the unity of our nation.”
Ali Yerlikaya
In the past week, police have taken hundreds of IS suspects into custody in nationwide raids aimed at preventing possible attacks during Christmas and New Year festivities.
The operation is the third of its kind in less than a week during the holiday season, and follows a deadly shootout on Tuesday between Turkish police and suspected ISIL members in the northwestern city of Yalova.
Tuesday’s clash killed three Turkish police and six suspected IS members, all Turkish nationals, while eight other officers and a night guard were wounded when security forces stormed a house used as a hideout. A day later, Turkish security forces arrested 357 suspected Islamic State members in a coordinated crackdown.
Turkish forces have intensified their operations against Islamic State sleeper cells during the holiday period, a time when the group has previously staged attacks in the country.
In 2017, when the group still held large swaths of neighbouring Syria and Iraq before being vanquished on the battlefield, ISIL attacked an Istanbul nightclub during New Year’s celebrations, killing 39 people.
Istanbul prosecutor’s office said that Turkish police had received intelligence that operatives were “planning attacks in Turkiye against non-Muslims in particular” this holiday season.
Turkey’s Raids Against IS Against Backdrop Of Global Resurgence
Turkey has conducted similar large‑scale operations against suspected IS members in previous years, but the latest sweep comes against the backdrop of an apparent global resurgence, marked by a recent IS-inspired attack in Australia and strikes on US forces in neighboring Syria.
On top of maintaining sleeper cells in Turkiye, Islamic State is still active in Syria, with which Turkiye shares a 900-kilometre (560-mile) border, and has carried out a spate of attacks there since the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad last year.
The United States military has waged extensive strikes against Islamic State in central and northeastern Syria this month, killing or capturing about 25 fighters from the group over the past two weeks, according to the US Central Command.
Those operations followed the killing of two American soldiers and an interpreter in an attack in the Syrian city of Palmyra by what the US said was an ISIL gunman.
US Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said in a statement on X that 11 missions were carried out over the past 10 days and followed initial strikes against IS weapons sites and infrastructure on Dec. 19, which hit 70 targets across central Syria.
Syrian security forces have also launched operations against IS in recent days, including two raids on the outskirts of Damascus, the Syrian capital.
In those raids, Syrian officials said that Taha al-Zoubi, identified as the IS leader in the Damascus area, was captured and Mohammed Shahadeh, a senior IS Commander in Syria, was killed.
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