Istanbul police has arrested an alleged member of the ISIS/Daesh terrorist group who was apparently planning to carry out a ‘spectacular’ attack against the Jewish community in Turkey and other countries.
According to the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, citing security sources, Turkish security forces received intelligence reports indicating that an individual of Uzbek origin linked to the Asian branch of ISIS, Abdulmalik A., had been sent by the organisation to Turkey with the aim of carrying out a major attack. The suspect, with no criminal record associated with his name, entered Turkish territory ‘legally’ through a European country, according to these sources.
The investigation revealed that the now-arrested man was planning a series of attacks on synagogues and Jewish schools in Turkey and other countries, security sources said, without giving further details about those targets. To unmask the terrorists’ plans, Turkish security forces infiltrated encrypted platforms used by radical Salafist groups, where they discovered that the suspect was in close contact with another foreign citizen.
Following an operation, the alleged member of ISIS was arrested in the basement of a house in the Fatih district, in the historic centre of Istanbul; after being interrogated at a police station and undergoing a medical examination, he appeared before a judge who ordered his remand in custody pending trial.
Extra security measures in Turkey’s synagogues
The police investigation is now examining his local connections to try to determine who his accomplices were in planning the attacks, while the authorities have ordered increased security measures in synagogues and schools of the Jewish community in Turkey, according to Turkish press.
The Jewish minority in Turkey, mostly Sephardic Jews descended from Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, suffered its worst terrorist attack on 15 November 2003, when Al-Qaeda detonated two bombs in the Neve Shalom and Bet Yaakov synagogues in Istanbul, killing 20 and injuring more than 250.
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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