Turkey arrests 94 Islamic State suspects ahead of New Year

Reuters
Updated

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police detained 94 people suspected of ties to Islamic State in nationwide raids on Monday ahead of New Year celebrations, police and state media said, two months after the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed.

Police have rounded up jihadist militants in late December in the last two years, since New Year's Day in 2017 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-attack/gunman-kills-39-in-istanbul-nightclub-manhunt-under-way-idUSKBN14K0NH when a gunman killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub in an attack claimed by the militant group.

Counter-terror police carried out the operations in the central provinces of Ankara, Kayseri and Adana, and Batman in the southeast, state-owned Anadolu news agency reported. Istanbul police said it also made arrests.

At 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) in Batman, some 400 police officers detained 22 people in simultaneous raids on various addresses, seizing weapons, ammunition and documents, Anadolu said.

It said 30 Iraqis, two Syrians and one Moroccan were detained in Ankara. Nine Iraqi citizens who had operated in Syria and Iraq were detained in Kayseri, while four Syrian and two Iraqi citizens were detained in Adana, it added.

Istanbul police said 20 Turks and four foreign nationals were captured in separate raids aimed to prevent potential attacks by the group ahead of New Year's.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Oct. 27 that Islamic State leader Baghdadi had been killed in a raid by U.S. special forces in northwest Syria, near the Turkish border.

Two days later, Turkish police detained dozens of Islamic State suspects believed to have been plotting attacks targeting celebrations of Turkey's Republic Day celebrations.

The government has said it will have repatriated most of its Islamic State detainees to their home countries by the end of the year.

Ankara had accused its European allies of being too slow to take back their citizens who traveled to the Middle East to join Islamic State.

Turkey's NATO allies have been worried that its October offensive into northeastern Syria against the Kurdish YPG militia could lead to Islamic State suspects and their families escaping from the prisons and camps run by the YPG.

(Reporting by Daren Butler and Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Jonathan Spicer)