Turkish Police Detain 251 in Raids Targeting Members of ISIL, PKK
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Turkish police launched raids targeting ISIL and members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in 13 provinces across Turkey on Friday.
Thousands of police officers have launched raids to arrest suspected members of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) following a wave of deadly violence in Turkey, killing one suspect and detaining more than 250 others, The Hürriyet Daily News reported citing other Turkish media on Friday.
Backed up by helicopters, police raided addresses in 13 Turkish provinces in search of members of ISIL, the PKK and other militant groups at dawn on July 24, the state-run Anadolu Agency said.
It added that a female member of the outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) was killed in a clash with police as they tried to enter a house in the Bağcılar district of Istanbul to make arrests.
In the western provinces of İzmir and Bursa, a total of 16 suspected militants of the PKK were arrested in the initial operation, according to private Doğan News Agency. The agency also said that some 5,000 police officers joined the raids in 140 addresses in Istanbul.
At least 251 people were detained in the operation, Turkish Prime Minister's office said in a statement, adding that it was determined to fight against ISIL and other militant groups "without distinction."
The raids came after 32 people were killed in a suicide bombing July 20 in a Turkish town on the Syrian border, blamed on ISIL.
This sparked an upsurge in violence in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast, where many accuse the Turkish authorities of collaborating with ISIL, accusations Ankara denies.
Two police were shot dead in southeast Turkey close to the Syrian border on July 22, in an attack claimed by the PKK’s military wing to avenge the Suruç bombing.
On July 23, another policeman was killed in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır.
Meanwhile, the PKK’s youth wing Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) claimed it shot dead an alleged former ISIL fighter in Istanbul late July 21.
The July 24 police raids targeted the YDG-H too, according to Doğan News Agency.