Intel warned security units over possible attack: Report

Fevzi Kızılkoyun - ANKARA

DHA photo

Turkey’s intelligence agency had posted two recent warnings to all security units in the country over possible attacks on tourists in Turkey along with foreign mission buildings and other foreigners, daily Hürriyet has learned.  

Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) said in two separate warnings issued on Dec. 17, 2015, and Jan. 4 that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was “in preparations for attacks on NATO representative offices, embassy and consulate buildings, spots where foreign citizens are populated and tourists, thus suicide bombers have entered the county and it is evaluated that they might have entered Istanbul and Ankara.” 

The MİT started working on the matter earlier upon intelligence that the terrorist organization was planning attacks on countries which had taken part in the U.S.-led operations in Syria, in particular Turkey. 

The warning was shared with the police headquarters and anti-terror units in Istanbul and Ankara and security forces and gendarmerie near the country’s borders, along with other units. 

The recent warning asked for the pursuit of suspects already marked by intelligence.

Most of these suspects, including nine women and 10 men, were of Syrian origin. 

On Jan. 4, the MİT warned foreign countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and France, over possible attacks, giving the names of 13 potential suicide bombers. 

Turkey’s police forces were put on alert in October 2015 to capture four suspects who were members of ISIL and had entered Turkey from Syria for a major attack, Anadolu Agency reported. 

According to the report, intelligence units discovered the suspects, one of them a foreign national, had already entered the country at the time. 

The suspects were reportedly instructed to carry out a major attack, such as hijacking a plane or a ship, or attacking a crowd during a rally.

Three of the suspects were members of the “Dokumacılar,” an extremists group based in the southeastern province of Adıyaman being probed for recruiting militants for ISIL.

Yunus Emre Alagöz, one of the suicide bombers in the Oct. 10, 2015, Ankara attack which claimed 101 lives, and his brother, Abdurrahman Alagöz, who killed 33 students in a similar attack in Suruç on July 20, 2015, were both members of the “Dokumacılar” group.

According to the information, the other suspects included: Ömer Deniz D., born in Adıyaman in 1993, who used a fake ID under the name Emre Kaya, Savaş Y., born in Adana in 1983, who carried an ID with the name Hamza Tonbak, Walentina S., who was born in Kazakhstan in 1995, was the only female member of the terror group and carried an ID with the name Yıldız Bozkurt and  20-year-old Muhammet Zana A. from Adıyaman, who used the name Murat Özalp.