ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish police on Monday arrested 94 people suspected of links to the Islamic State in raids across the country ahead of New Year celebrations, police and state media reported two months ago after the death of the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Police have been gathering jihadist militants in late December for the past two years, since New Year’s Day 2017, when a gunman killed 39 people at a nightclub in Istanbul in an attack claimed by the militant group.
Anti-terrorist police conducted operations in the central provinces of Ankara, Kayseri and Adana, and Batman in the southeast, state news agency Anadolu reported. Istanbul police said they also made arrests.
At 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) at Batman, about 400 police officers arrested 22 people in simultaneous raids at various directions, confiscating weapons, ammunition and documents, Anadolu said.
It was said that 30 Iraqis, two Syrians and one Moroccan were arrested in Ankara. Nine Iraqi citizens who had operated in Syria and Iraq were detained in Kayseri, while four Syrian citizens and two Iraqis were detained in Adana, he added.
Istanbul police said 20 Turks and four foreign nationals were captured in separate raids aimed at preventing possible attacks by the group before the New Year.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced on October 27 that the leader of the Islamic State of Baghdadi had been killed in a U.S. special forces raid in northwestern Syria, near the border. Turkish.
Two days later, Turkish police arrested dozens of Islamic State suspects believed to be planning attacks aimed at Republic of Turkey Day celebrations.
The government has said it will repatriate most of the Islamic State detainees to their home countries by the end of the year.
Ankara had accused its European allies of being too slow to recover its citizens who traveled to the Middle East to join the Islamic State.
Turkey’s NATO allies have expressed concern that their October offensive in northeastern Syria against the Kurdish YPG militia could cause Islamic State suspects and their families to flee. YPG-run prisons and camps.
Reports by Daren Butler and Ali Kucukgocmen; Edited by Jonathan Spicer