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Turkish security forces have detained 51 suspects in nationwide operations targeting the Daesh terrorist group, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said Thursday.
Yerlikaya announced the arrests on X, saying the suspects were accused of membership in Daesh, financing aid organizations linked to the group, and spreading terrorist propaganda online.
The operations were carried out by the gendarmerie over the past two weeks in 32 provinces, including Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Diyarbakir, Gaziantep and Sanliurfa.
Authorities seized numerous organizational documents and digital materials during the raids, Yerlikaya said.
“Our fight against terrorism is based on a multidimensional state reflex that not only consists of field operations by our law enforcement but also encompasses security, intelligence, communication and international cooperation,” he said, vowing that operations would continue “365 days a year, day and night.”
Daesh has staged a series of deadly attacks in Türkiye since 2014.
The deadliest strike was on Oct. 10, 2015, when suicide bombers hit the city’s main train station, killing over 100 people and wounding nearly 400.
Other major attacks included:
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In Türkiye’s southeast, a July 20, 2015, suicide bombing in Suruc killed 34 people, while an Aug. 20, 2016, attack on a wedding in Gaziantep killed 57.
That same year, Kilis province came under sustained Daesh rocket fire from Syria, leaving 24 dead.
Beyond Türkiye’s borders, Daesh kidnapped Consul Ozturk Yilmaz and 49 staff members from the Turkish Consulate in Mosul, Iraq, on June 11, 2014.
They were later rescued in a Turkish operation.
The group also assassinated two anti-Daesh Al Jazeera journalists in Türkiye in 2015: Mohamed el-Sarkat in Gaziantep and Naji Jerf in Sanliurfa.
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