Counter-terror ‘Clamp’ operation nets 42 FETÖ suspects
TURKISH security forces captured over 40 suspects with links to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) in nationwide raids, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced yesterday.
Intelligence officers and counterterrorism units apprehended a total of 42 suspects in an operation code-named “Clamp-6” and conducted across 14 provinces, including the capital Ankara as well as the western provinces of Bursa and Çanakkale, and the eastern Şanlıurfa and Afyonkarahisar provinces, Yerlikaya said via X.
The investigation uncovered that the suspects, including convicted fugitives, were directly involved with the terrorist group, Yerlikaya noted. They were sheltered in the so-called “gaybubet” (“absence”) houses of FETÖ, used its encrypted communication app and served in its “secret formations” in the military and police force.
“Absence” houses are used as safe houses by wanted FETÖ members who often forge IDs and rarely step out to avoid capture. A former member who testified to prosecutors said that the group’s “absence” houses increased from 75 to 560 across Türkiye. Authorities believe that number might be even higher.
Yerlikaya said police seized fake IDs, a large amount of cash in Turkish lira and digital materials during this week’s raids.
Türkiye has marked FETÖ as a security threat since December 2013 when the terrorist group emerged as the perpetrator of two coup attempts disguised as graft probes.
Prosecutors have found the group’s infiltrators in law enforcement, the judiciary, bureaucracy and the military had waged a long-running campaign to topple the government. FETÖ is also implicated in a string of cases related to its alleged plots to imprison its critics, money laundering, fraud and forgery.
FETÖ has been under more intense scrutiny since the July 15, 2016, coup attempt its infiltrators in the army carried out, which left 251 people dead and thousands more injured.
Under a state of emergency following the attempt, tens of thousands of people were detained, arrested or dismissed from public sector jobs.
The terrorist group faces operations almost daily as investigators still try to unravel their massive network of infiltrators everywhere. In 2024 alone, police apprehended hundreds of FETÖ suspects across the country, including fugitives on western borders trying to flee to Europe.
The National Defense Ministry announced in 2022 that 24,387 Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) members were sacked since the coup attempt for possible ties to the group, while administrative inquiries are underway for over 700 others.
Meanwhile, an unknown number of FETÖ members, mostly high-ranking figures, fled Türkiye when the coup was thwarted.
Many of the group’s members had already left the country before the coup attempt after Turkish prosecutors launched investigations into other crimes of the terrorist group.
For droves of FETÖ members, Greece was and remains the easiest destination to flee to as a gateway to Europe, where they are tolerated. FETÖ members usually spend a short time in Greece before moving to other European countries, with Germany being the most popular destination.
Most of them try to flee through the northwestern borders of Edirne province. Police intercepted 3,739 FETÖ fugitives who tried to escape to Greece via the land border since July 2016, official figures showed, including 739 FETÖ suspects caught on the border in 2023 alone.
These fugitives, featuring expelled soldiers, judges, prosecutors, police officers and academics, often try to blend in with irregular migrants or collaborate with other terrorist groups like the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP) and the PKK.