Turkish secret services and security forces arrested 109 presumed Isis foreign fighters in the cities of Istanbul (82), Adana (11), Smyrna (7) and Trabzon (9), adding to the 220 suspects who ended up in handcuffs on last Friday and Thursday by order of the Ankara police headquarters. According to what was declared by the Turkish police, 93 of the 109 arrested come from countries other than Turkey, while the foreign fighters in recent roundups are 82.
The arrests follow another maxi operation, which took place at the end of October, ordered by the Istanbul and Ankara prosecutors always to eliminate the threat deriving from the foreign fighters who have returned to Turkey, which according to the Soufan research institute would be at least 800.
Among the arrested there are many war criminals in Syria, even with obvious signs of wounds. Investigators are now focusing on a particular suspicion that it is believed that they want to reach an active cell in Europe through Greece, and then commit an attack.
The state of alert and security measures adopted allowed the Turkish security forces to fend off an attack planned for the 29 October, the Day of the Republic Day, and another scheduled yesterday, commemorating the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk , considered the father of modern Turkey.
The prosecutor of Sakarya, in the north of Turkey, presented the request for life imprisonment against the 12 suspected members of the first ISIS cell vanquished in Turkey in 2015, at the top of which it is believed there was the Emir "Halis Bayuncuk", like Abu Hanzala.