Türkiye’s Interior Minister said Aug. 2 that 99 suspected members of the Islamic State jihadist group had been detained in recent raids across the country, mostly in the Izmir and Ankara areas.The arrests took place in the last three days. That brings the number of arrests to a total of 2,919 people suspected of links to the terrorist group.
The Turkish crackdown on ISIS began a few months ago and parallels Türkiye’s decision to normalize relations with Syria which had collapsed when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had given full support to the Arab Spring and those seeking to overthrow the Syrian government.
ISIS has targeted both Syria and Russia and as Hürriyet Daily News points out that 2 of the assailants who massacred 145 people in Moscow at the concert at the Crocus City Hall last March, an attack for which ISIS claimed responsibility, had spent several weeks in Türkiye before heading to Russia.
