3 held in new Turkish crackdown on Daesh

Police officers patrol outside the Ankara offices of the daily Cumhuriyet, the leading pro-secular Turkish newspaper, in this January 14, 2015 file photo. (AFP)

ANKARA: Turkish counter-terrorism police arrested three people in the southern province of Adana on suspicion of recruiting for Daesh.
The arrests came amid heightened security because of fears that militants may cross the border into Turkey as they lose territory in northern Iraq.
The counter-terror operation on Friday involved a police helicopter and a raid by special forces on the homes of suspected Daesh militants.
Turkey says it has detained a total of 5,000 suspected Daesh members and deported 3,290 foreign fighters from 95 countries trying to cross Turkish territory.
Ankara is on particularly high alert after the defeat of Daesh in Mosul and Tal Afar in Iraq, where 174 Turkish militants from Daesh have surrendered to the Iraqi army, Hashd Al-Shaabi militias and Kurdish peshmerga forces in Iraq.
A warning sent to Turkish border units said: “Daesh has shown major losses with the latest operations. The militants who are fleeing from the group, which is in the process of breaking down in Iraq and Syria, may infiltrate into Turkey through human smugglers or by disguising themselves as refugees.”
Turkey’s efforts against militant sleeper cells gained new momentum after the Daesh attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul on New Year’s Eve, in which 39 people were killed. “After that attack, about 2,000 people were arrested in country-wide security operations against Daesh sympathizers,” said Merve Seren, a security analyst at the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), a think tank in Ankara.
“The main objective of these operations was to prevent the terror organization from recruiting militants from Turkey, to avoid their possible preparations for a terror attack and to eliminate their propaganda activities for spreading the messages of Daesh.”
Turkey has established risk-analysis centers at airports and bus stations to spot foreign fighters trying to cross Turkey to join Daesh militants in Syria. Anyone suspected of doing so is deported to their country of origin.
Turkey is a risky country for anyone to cross in an attempt to join Daesh because it is almost impossible to avoid the tight security, Seren said, and a no-entry list of potential foreign fighters, established through international cooperation, was also key to Turkey’s counterterrorism efforts.
Other analysts said counter-terrorism efforts were being increased in line with Ankara’s perception of the threat. Deprived of territory, Daesh had “resorted to classical terror incursions and individual acts by utilizing sleeper cells,” said Kadir Ertac Celik, an adviser at the Ankara Center for Crisis and Policy Studies (ANKASAM), another think tank. “Daesh could carry out attacks in Turkey to convey the message that it remains strong.”
Celik said policy disagreements between Turkey and the West over Syria and Iraq may benefit terror groups, who could be used as proxies to conduct terror attacks in Turkey. Counter-terrorism operations were a message to the international community about Turkey’s resoluteness in fighting terrorism that threatens international and regional peace, Celik said.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the West last month for not acting in solidarity with Turkey when Ankara “had to fight Daesh alone,” and not sharing intelligence with Turkey in its counterterrorism efforts.