Turkish police have detained more than forty people suspected of having alleged links with DAESH terrorist organization, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Sunday.
Police carried out simultaneous raids to 24 addresses, detaining forty foreign nationals from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Azerbaijan in Istanbul’s Fatih district on Sunday.
Some suspects are identified as having gone to the conflict areas inside Syria several times, Anadolu said.
Police detain 40 suspected Daesh terrorists in counter-terror raids conducted in Istanbul’s Fatih district pic.twitter.com/0wcc3ez9hu
— Turkish Mission OIC (@TurkeyOIC) September 18, 2016
Thousands of foreign fighters used Turkey as a passageway to join DAESH in their self-proclaimed caliphate in recent years. Ankara has since launched a crackdown on the networks facilitating their passage.
In addition, the country has suffered a series of attacks blamed on DAESH and the PKK over the past year.
As a member of the anti-ISIS (also known as anti-DAESH) coalition led by the United States, Turkey has started to take an active role in the fight against these groups.
In recent months it has cracked down on the group's sleeper cells and launched an ambitious operation inside Syria to oust DEASH and the PKK, from its frontier.
DAESH has carried out more than seven suspected suicide bombings across Turkey since July 2015, which have killed more than 250 people.
The group also were accused of being behind the suicide bombing at Istanbul Ataturk airport in June.
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