Turkey to deport seven ISIL-linked Russians

KİLİS – Doğan News Agency

DHA photo

Turkey will deport seven Russians suspected of being members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who were detained on Dec. 1 in Kilis, a southern province bordering Syria.

The seven ISIL-linked Russians, including five children, were detained in Kilis’s Elbeyli district early on Dec. 1 as they attempted to cross into Turkey from Syria.

All the detained suspects were taken to the Kilis Migration Management Authority for legal procedures before deportation.

Turkey has stepped up counterterrorism activities against ISIL after militants from the group were implicated both in the Suruç bombing and the twin Ankara suicide blasts.

The perpetrator of the suicide bombing attack in Suruç, a district in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, was identified to be an ISIL militant, who detonated himself and lefts dozens of civilians dead and more than 100 injured on July 20. 

The suicide bomber of the Ankara twin blasts was also identified to be an ISIL militant, who killed more than 100 and left hundreds of others injured outside a train station in the Turkish capital on Oct. 10. The attack in Ankara was the deadliest act of terrorism in Turkey’s history.