Five ISIL members caught in Turkey’s southeast, says General Staff

ISTANBUL

The General Staff has announced that five suspected members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have been captured in the southeastern Turkish province of Gaziantep over the past week. 

While four individuals thought to be ISIL members were captured in Gaziantep’s Oğuzeli district on Feb. 2, one more was captured in the same place on Feb. 4, according to announcements on the General Staff’s website.
 
The alleged ISIL members were seized during security forces road inspections. 

While a number of foreign ISIL members have started being captured in Turkey, a Turkish citizen was recently arrested for being a member of ISIL for the first time in the country, daily Vatan had reported on Feb. 4. 

The 38-year-old man, identified as Musa Göktaş, reportedly crossed into Syria to join the ISIL militants with his 15-year-old twin sons on Oct. 8, 2014. His wife later reported to police that her husband and children were missing, suspecting that her sons had joined ISIL with their father without telling her. 

Göktaş was detained on Jan. 27 by police during an identity check while on a bus in Gaziantep that was traveling to Ankara, where he was living before leaving the country. 

Göktaş has been questioned on charges of being a member of ISIL and arrested by an Ankara court on suspicion of escaping and spoiling evidence.