At least eight suspects have been arrested in Turkey’s Black Sea region for their links to the Daesh terrorist group, security sources said Tuesday.
Police, anti-terror and intelligence teams in northern Samsun province launched simultaneous operations at various sites to nab the Iraqi suspects, said the source, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.
The raids were held in the districts of Ilkadım, Canik, Tekkeköy and Atakum, it added.
Digital materials were also seized from their residences.
Following medical examinations, the suspects were taken to the police station.
Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Daesh as a terror group in 2013, as soon as it emerged. The country has since been attacked by Daesh terrorists numerous times, including 10 suicide bombings, seven bombings and four armed attacks that killed 315 people and injured hundreds of others.
In response, Turkey launched military and police operations at home and abroad to prevent further terrorist incidents.
The Daesh terrorist group held vast swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq from its rise in 2014 until its military defeat last year. Their expansion in Iraq and Syria featured horrendous public abuses. Largely unseen but equally egregious were the widespread detentions and kidnappings by Daesh, in which thousands of people were snatched from their homes, cars and at checkpoints and subsequently went missing.
The terrorist group also frequently filmed its members executing the people it abducted or detained. Daesh systematically committed torture, rapes, forced marriages, extreme acts of ethnic cleansing, mass murder, genocide, robbery, extortion, smuggling, slavery, kidnappings and the use of child soldiers.