Ten foreigners were arrested in Istanbul by Turkish security forces. A special operation was conducted by Turkish Security forces in 12 districts of Istanbul. It is suspected that the 16 foreigners arrested by security forces had been active in Iraq and Syria. Moreover, those detained are said to have links with Daesh. Daesh declared its status as a ‘caliphate’ in 2014 and began military operations in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria.
Back in 2013, Turkey pioneered the identification of Daesh as a terrorist organization. Since then, Daesh has targeted Turkey several times by conducting terror attacks against civilians, including those conducted in Istanbul and Ankara between 2016 and 2017. In response to this, Turkey propelled a counter-terrorism plan to prevent further attacks.
Turkish services correspondingly captured a senior Daesh terrorist in the previous month, in an operation carried out in Ankara. The Daesh terrorist was captured soon after his arrival to Ankara, Turkey’s capital city. Furthermore, Turkish security forces also rescued a 7-year-old Yazidi girl abducted from Iraq during the operation concerned.
