Turkey arrests 102 ISIL suspects in six months

ANKARA

AFP photo

Turkish security forces have detained nearly 600 ISIL members in six months and arrested 102 of them, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said in a press conference on July 22.

By 2015, the number of Turkish nationals who had joined ISIL was between 1,000-1,300, including those killed, officials told the Hürriyet Daily News. 

Some 24,000 foreign terrorists, along with Syrians and Iraqis, are fighting for ISIL in Syria and Iraq, whose ranks have an estimated 40,000-70,000 people, according to Turkish officials.  

Turkey has put travel bans on 16,000 people from 108 countries, half of whom are from North Africa and the Middle East. Nearly 23 percent of those banned from traveling to Turkey are from North America and European countries, while 23 percent are of East European and Asian origin.

Turkey’s risk analysis unit at borders interrogated 3,000 suspicious travelers and denied entry to around 1,000 of them. 

So far, Turkish authorities have deported 1,600 foreigners from 83 countries from Turkey on terrorism suspicions. This number, which was 520 for the whole 2014, exceeded 570 in the first half of 2015.