17 ISIL-linked suspects arrested near Turkey’s southeastern border

GAZİANTEP – Doğan News Agency

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Seventeen suspects, including 15 foreign nationals, who purportedly planned to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria, have been arrested in the southeastern province of Gaziantep.

The suspects, seven of them children, were arrested in Gaziantep city on Oct. 12 after security forces stopped two vehicles they were traveling in, the Gaziantep Governor’s Office said in a written statement.

“Seventeen people were arrested on Oct. 12 upon searches and checks of two vehicles stopped as part of an operation against those who came from abroad and want to go to conflict zones in Syria, through our province, to join Daesh,” it stated, using the term commonly used by Turkish officials to refer to ISIL. 

Two of the arrested people were Turkish, seven were children, and fifteen were foreign nationals, the statement added.

It said another foreign national was arrested as part of a series of operations in Gaziantep, the capital Ankara, the northwestern province of Bursa, and the southeastern province of Kilis.

“Operations are ongoing. Necessary investigations are being conducted over the arrested suspects,” the governor’s office stated.