Four ISIL members detained in two Turkish provinces

BURSA – Doğan News Agency

DHA photo

Four members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have been captured in two separate provinces, the Turkish General Staff has said in a written statement.

The general staff said Nov. 25 that two Russian citizens identified to be ISIL members were detained in an operation in the northwestern province of Bursa.

Doğan News Agency reported that the Bursa operation was conducted in the Gürsu district.

 In the southeastern province of Kilis, two foreign nationals were captured in the Elbeyli district as they attempted to cross into Syria from Turkey on Nov. 25, the general staff added.

The military operations in the eastern provinces of Siirt, Bitlis, Van as well as in the southeastern provinces of Mardin, Diyarbakır and Şanlırurfa, were still ongoing, it added. 

Turkey has stepped up anti-terror operations against ISIL after the group was implicated in the Oct. 10 Ankara blasts, the twin bombings that killed more than 100 civilians and wounded hundreds of others ahead of a peace demonstration outside a train station in Ankara.

More than 1,000 suspects have been detained on suspicion of ISIL links since the beginning of the year.

Ankara, however, declared what it described as a “synchronized war on terror” in July, referring to both the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and ISIL.