Turkey detained dozens of people suspected of links to the Islamic State (IS) group during nationwide raids on Wednesday, iInterior minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
The raids were carried out in Istanbul and 24 other provinces, including Ankara and Yalova. Yerlikaya shared a video showing security forces raiding suspects’ homes, with some detainees seen with their hands cuffed behind their backs.
“We captured 125 Daesh suspects in simultaneous operations carried out in 25 provinces this morning,” Yerlikaya wrote on X, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
The latest operations follow a series of security actions against the extremist group.
On Monday, three police officers were killed during an operation targeting IS in Yalova, in northwestern Turkey. The hours-long clash left six IS members dead, all of them Turkish nationals.
The security forces arrested 357 people during another operation, a day later, aimed at IS suspects.
Commenting on the crackdown, Yerlikaya said, “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,” as quoted by news agency AFP.
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