The sweep comes a day after police launched a series of operations against IS groups, including a raid on more than a dozen houses in the south eastern city of Diyarbakir.
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On Monday, two policemen and seven IS suspects were killed in a gun battle in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir in the southeast of the country. This morning, Turkey said it had detained 30 suspected ISIS militants.
“It was an important operation…”
Turkey has been on the hunt for IS extremists since the twin bombings on a peace rally in Ankara on October 10 that killed 102 people and wounded 500 more, the worst such attack in the country’s history. One of the bombers was identified as a IS militant.
Erdogan said Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, the Syrian “mukhabarat” secret police and the Syrian Kurdish PYD militia had worked together with Islamic State in the bombing on October. 10.
A Syrian town captured by Kurdish-led forces from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in June joined the Kurdish-led political order in northern Syria on Wednesday, officials said, a move likely to deepen Turkish concerns about the Kurds’ expanding role just over the border. The two reports seemed to conflict each other with Davutoglu suggesting that the Turkish forces had hit the Kurdish forces west of the Euphrates river while the YPG said the attack was in Tal Abyad, which is east of the river. Many see the claim as a government attempt to deflect blame for the attack that came weeks ahead of Turkey’s November 1 election. He said the aim was to stabilize Turkey.
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Armored police vehicles sealed off a road where police launched the raid, news agency Dogan’s video footage showed.
