Turkey arrests 100 IS suspects

ISTANBUL: Turkish police detained 100 people suspected of ties to Islamic State in nationwide raids ahead of New Year celebrations, state media said two months after the killing of the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Police have rounded up militants in late December in the last two years, since New Year’s Day in 2017 when a gunman killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub in an attack claimed by the militant group.

Counter-terror police ramped up intelligence activities and carried out the operations in the central provinces of Ankara, Kayseri and Adana, and Batman in the southeast.

Some 400 police officers took part in a 5am operation yesterday. — Reuters