Turkiye arrests 115 ISIL suspects it says planned holiday attacks

More than 100 suspected ISIL (ISIS) operatives have been arrested in Istanbul, according to officials, preventing planned attacks on Christmas and New Year’s Day.

According to a statement from the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office, authorities raided 115 of the city’s 124 locations on Thursday, apprehending the suspects they were looking for.

According to the statement, police learned that ISIL members were “planning attacks in Turkiye against non-Muslims in particular” during the holiday season.

During the sweeps, officers seized firearms, ammunition, and what officials described as organizational documents.

The remaining 22 suspects are still being sought, but they still need to be located.

Individuals who had been instrumental in funding the group’s activities and spreading its propaganda were identified as part of that sweep, which was coordinated by intelligence services, police, and military forces.

The prosecutor’s office pointed out the threat’s transnational nature by stating that those detained had spoken with ISIL operatives outside of Turkiye.

The arrests are Turkiye’s most recent move in the fight against the armed group, which officials view as the second-highest threat to the nation as a “terrorism” threat.

Given its geography and population, ISIL activity has made Turkiye its top target. The armed group still maintains presence in Syria on a long border, even though it lost its territorial holdings in 2019.

Since then, the organization has expanded to other parts of Africa and expanded to include new affiliates.

In recent years, there have been many arrests.

After the group’s self-declared caliphate was overthrown in some of Iraq and Syria in 2019, Turkish authorities claim some of the country’s suspected ISIL members reestablished their presence there.

ISIL was officially a terrorist organization in 2013 thanks to Turkiye. Earlier than that, according to figures from the Turkish presidency, more than 19 000 people were detained for alleged affiliations with the group between 2023 and that time.

In that time, it said, over 7,600 foreign nationals who were suspected of engaging in foreign-armed group activity were also deported.

Following a string of arrests in March, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced that 298 suspected ISIL members had been detained in 47 provinces over the course of two weeks.

The arrests come just five days after US forces launched extensive strikes against ISIL positions in Syria, hitting more than 70 targets.

In response to a Palmyra ambush earlier this month that resulted in the deaths of two American soldiers and an interpreter, those attacks were ordered.