‘ISIL minibus’ dodges police raid in Istanbul

Çetin Aydın ISTANBUL

ISIL recruits in Turkey have come under the spotlight recently.

More than a dozen men who were allegedly planning to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have reportedly dodged a police raid in Istanbul.

Early on Sept. 17, the Istanbul Security Directorate received a tip-off from a citizen, who requested to remain anonymous, that 15 men were preparing to leave the city in a minibus, bound for northern Iraq.

The anti-terrorism department urgently sent a police team to the street on Istanbul’s Asian side mentioned by the informant, but by the time they got there the minibus had already left, according to locals.

Sketches of the men in the minibus have been produced, based on the locals’ description, and were sent to security forces across Turkey’s southern provinces bordering Syria and Iraq with the code “urgent,” a police source said.