ANKARA — Turkish authorities detained 31 people suspected of having ties to the Islamic State, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Monday.
The operation, dubbed “Pigeon Hawk-46,” involved raids over the past week across six provinces, including Turkey’s largest metropolis Istanbul, the capital Ankara and the Mediterranean resort province of Antalya, Yerlikaya said on the X platform.
“We will not give respite to terrorists,” he said, sharing edited footage of security forces raiding apartments and placing suspects into police vehicles.
6️⃣ ilde DEAŞ Terör Örgütüne yönelik Bayram tatili boyunca gerçekleştirilen “BOZDOĞAN-46” operasyonlarında 3️⃣1️⃣ şüpheli yakalandı❗
— Ali Yerlikaya (@AliYerlikaya) June 24, 2024
Aziz Milletimizin Bilmesini İsterim ki;
Teröristlerin hiçbirine göz açtırmayacağız. Tek bir hedefimiz var; son terörist etkisiz hale getirilinceye… pic.twitter.com/9XIQgGcJNP
Authorities have ramped up operations against ISIS, particularly after the extremist group’s January attack on Istanbul’s Santa Maria Catholic Church that killed one churchgoer in the first attack of its kind in almost half a decade. Turkish authorities have detained nearly 1,000 people over suspected links to the group since the attack, according to an Al-Monitor tally.
Despite the group’s territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria, ISIS' regional Khorasan branch (ISIS-K) has committed a series of recent attacks.
ISIS claimed responsibility for a mass shooting at a Moscow concert hall in March and a January attack on an Istanbul church. Both bore the hallmarks of ISIS-K, as the main culprits behind the assaults were Central Asian fighters.
A little more than two months after the concert hall massacre, the worst terrorist attack to hit Russia in recent history, a group of assailants conducted simultaneous attacks on a series of targets, including two Orthodox churches and a synagogue in the Russian republic of Dagestan along the Caspian Sea on Sunday. At least 19 people including 15 police officers were killed in what appeared to be coordinated attacks, according to Russian reports. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet, Russian state-media outlets described the attackers as “followers of an international terrorist organization,” citing Russian officials.
