Turkey kills IS suspect, detains four more ‘planning attack’
ISTANBUL: Turkish security forces on Saturday killed a suspected Islamic State ( IS) jihadist and detained four others believed to have been planning a bomb attack, local authorities said.
Turkish forces in the southern Hatay region bordering Syria stopped a vehicle carrying five suspected IS members after receiving intelligence that “they had come to our country to carry out a bomb attack”, the regional governor’s office said.
Four of the suspects gave themselves up but security forces opened fire on the fifth individual after he failed to heed warnings to surrender and attempted to attack them, it said.
Identified as a Syrian national, he later died in hospital despite efforts to save his life, the statement said.
The nationalities of the other four were not specified. The statement said investigations were continuing into the incident.
Meanwhile, two foreign citizens who are also suspected members of the IS group were detained on Thursday in Istanbul, the staterun Anadolu news agency said Saturday.
They are accused of planning an attack and police seized an automatic rifle, two pistols and ammunition in the raid, it said. The pair had entered Turkey illegally, it added, without specifying their nationality.
Turkey was hit by a succession of attacks in 2016 that left hundreds dead in the bloodiest year of terror strikes in its history.
The attacks were attributed to IS jihadists as well as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party ( PKK) who have battled the Turkish state in an insurgency lasting more than three decades.
In one of the bloodiest strikes, a jihadist gunman opened fire on an elite nightclub in Istanbul just 75 minutes into New Year’s Day in 2017, killing 39 people, mainly foreigners.
There has since been a lull in similar attacks, but tensions remain high and Turkish police launch raids almost daily against suspected IS cells across the country.
A 24-year- old Turkish police officer was stabbed to death in Istanbul last weekend by a suspected IS member who had been arrested on suspicions he was planning a suicide attack. — AFP