Sunday, 5 February 2017

Turkish police arrests 400 ISIS suspects in anti-terror crackdown


Turkish police have arrested 400 suspected ISIS terrorists in a major nation-wide anti-terror clampdown. At least 60 suspected jihadis were arrested in Ankara, just over a month after a terror attack on Istanbul which claimed the lives of 39 people. The New Year's Eve night club attack saw a gunman go on the rampage with a machine gun in the club. Most of the victims were foreign nationals. Turkish security forces conducted a series of coordinated raids to arrest suspected jihadis. The raids saw Turkish police arrest the suspects including foreign nationals - who are believed to have been planning attacks.
The operation around the country saw 150 suspects detained in Sanliurfa in the southeast, 60 in the capital Ankara as well as dozens more arrests in provinces ranging from Bursa in the west to Bingol in the east, the Dogan and Anadolu news agencies reported. The New Year's Eve attack was the first time ISIS claimed responsibility for an atrocity in Turkey, although it had been suspected of several bombings during 2016. Police detained the suspected New Year's Eve attacker, Abdulgadir Masharipov, an Uzbek national, on January 16 after over over two weeks on the run and authorities say he has confessed to the massacre.

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