Istanbul officials on Thursday announced they detained 115 suspected members of ISIS who were planning terror attacks in Turkey aimed at mostly non-Muslim people at Christmas and New Year events, such as the Christmas mass at Saint Antuan Church pictured in 2022. File Photo by Erdem Sahin/EPA
Dec. 25 (UPI) — Police in Turkey detained 115 people on Thursday suspected of planning to stage terror attacks at Christmas and New Year’s Day celebrations in the country.
The Istanbul Provincial Police Department, on instruction from the city’s Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, carried out 124 raids targeting 137 suspected members of ISIS, officials said in a press release.
“These suspects were identified as being in contact with conflict zones within the scope of terrorist organization activities,” the prosecutor’s office said in a press release posted to X.
The suspects, prosecutors said, were “planning attacks and issuing calls for action targeting our country — specifically aimed at non-Muslim individuals — within the context of upcoming Christmas and New Year events.”
Officials apprehended 115 of the 137 suspects and seized pistols, cartridges and “numerous organization documents” during the raids.
The Turkish National Intelligence Organization had earlier captured what it said is a senior ISIS figure who is suspected of being sent to carry out a suicide attack in Turkey, the Daily Sabah reported.
Other ISIS operators had as a result been investigated in Turkey after spending time in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region where they trained and planned for potential security attacks, according to Turkish intelligence figures.
Turkey, which shares a border with Syria, where ISIS continues to operate, has worked with Syria’s new president, as well as officials in the United States and Europe, to investigate and root what is left of the terrorist group, the BBC reported.
