Turkish police arrest 13 during anti-Daesh raids

Turkish police have carried out raids against suspected Daesh cells in Istanbul and detained 13 people, including three foreigners, a Turkish official says.

Police on Thursday carried out simultaneous raids at 16 different addresses in Istanbul following the triple bombings at Istanbul's international airport that left 42 people dead.  

Counter-terrorism police teams, led by special forces officers, carried out raids in working-class neighborhoods of Istanbul in Pendik, Basaksehir and Sultanbeyli.

Nine suspected militants, thought to have been in contact with Daesh in Syria, were meanwhile detained in raids in three districts in Izmir, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Those arrested are suspected of financing, recruiting and providing logistical support to the Daesh Takfiri group, which is currently wreaking havoc in Syria and Iraq.

The raids come two days after a triple bombing and gun attacks killed 42 people and injured 239 others at the Istanbul airport.

Three terrorists blew themselves up late on Tuesday night as security forces were trying to block their progress into the airport.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has said early signs suggested that the Daesh terrorist group was behind the bombings.

Turkey has faced a string of terrorist attacks over the past year, including several in Istanbul, as it confronts threats from both Daesh and Kurdish militants.

Turkey’s Western allies have blamed the country’s open-border policy for allowing extremist groups like Daesh to become powerful inside Syria, and the chaos has increasingly spilled over into Turkey, with terrorist attacks and waves of refugees.

Many countries believe that Turkey’s early policy on Syria enabled the growth of Daesh. They have long felt that Turkey is a reluctant partner in fighting the terrorist group.

"Unfortunately, we see the side effects of a disastrous Syria policy that has brought terrorism into the heart of Istanbul and Ankara,” Suat Kiniklioglu, a former lawmaker, told the New York Times.

"This is obviously intended to create an atmosphere of chaos and hit the economy and tourism,” said Kiniklioglu, who is now chairman of the Center for Strategic Communication, a research organization, in Ankara.

Some of the recent terrorist attacks in Turkey — including a car bombing in Ankara in February — have been attributed to Kurdish militants, which has heightened tensions between Ankara and Washington over the support the United States has given to Syrian Kurdish militants.

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