AKIPRESS.COM - Turkey's anti-terrorism police have detained more than 440 people for alleged links to the group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the state-run Anadolu newws agency reported Sunday.
Anadolu said that 60 ISIS suspects, the vast majority of them foreigners, were taken into custody early Sunday in the capital, Ankara.
It said a total of 445 people were detained in simultaneous pre-dawn police operations that spanned several cities, including Istanbul and Gaziantep, near the border with Syria.
The largest operation was in the southeast province of Sanliurfa, where police took into custody more than 100 suspects from multiple addresses and found materials relating to ISIS militants.
Security forces also apprehended nine suspects who were allegedly preparing an attack in the northwestern city of Izmir.
Anadolu did not give the nationalities of all those detained but there were 10 minors among the foreigners detained in Istanbul and the northwestern province of Kocaeli.
Turkey, which last year endured a failed coup attempt and dozens of bloody attacks linked to ISIS or Kurdish militants, has been stepping up its anti-terrorism efforts.