Thirty-one people have been detained for alleged links to the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in İstanbul.
As part of an investigation conducted by İstanbul public prosecutor Mehmet Şenay Baygın against ISIL, detention warrants have been issued for 41 ISIL suspects on charges of membership in a terrorist organization. Thirty-one of the suspects were detained during police raids on Friday morning. The suspects were taken to the İstanbul Police Station for interrogation. Police are looking for the remaining 10 suspects who are at large.
Over the past one-and-a-half years, ISIL has carried out a number of deadly attacks in Turkey that claimed the lives of around 200 people. On Oct. 10, 2015, ISIL perpetrated the most violent terrorist attack in Turkey’s history, killing 104 people in Ankara when two of its suicide bombers blew themselves up.
On Thursday, Turkey was also shaken by a video released by ISIL showing two Turkish soldiers being burned to death.
ISIL allegedly burned alive two Turkish soldiers who it took hostage three weeks ago in the al-Bab region of northern Syria.
The video came a day after 16 Turkish soldiers were killed and 31 injured in ISIL attacks in al-Bab.
As part of an operation called the Euphrates Shield, Turkey sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels drive ISIL from the border city of Jarabulus on Aug. 24, in a dramatic escalation of its involvement in the Syrian civil war.
