ISTANBUL: Turkey has captured a top member of the extremist Daesh group responsible for operations on its territory, the interior minister announced on Tuesday.
The group has claimed responsibility for a spate of deadly attacks in Turkey, including an assault on an upscale Istanbul nightclub during New Year’s Eve festivities just minutes into 2017, which left 39 people including tourists dead.
“Daesh’s so-called Turkey emir (commander) has been captured and detained,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu tweeted, praising the Turkish police.
Speaking to reporters later, Soylu identified the suspect as Mahmut Ozden, adding that he was captured after the August 18 arrest of another Daesh member who was allegedly planning an attack in Istanbul.
The suspect received orders from Syria and Iraq and was also asked to organize small-scale protests in Turkey, Soylu said in televised remarks.
The minister said police had also uncovered plans for several Daesh attacks, including a kidnapping plot.
“There’s an ongoing operation” to locate other suspects, he said.
Turkey has stepped up its campaign against the Daesh group at home and abroad, and allowed its territory to be used as a staging post for raids by a US-led international coalition battling extremists in Syria.
Turkey detains top Daesh member
https://arab.news/87d52
Turkey detains top Daesh member
- “Daesh’s so-called Turkey emir (commander) has been captured and detained,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said
- The suspect received orders from Syria and Iraq and was also asked to organize small-scale protests in Turkey
US, Qatar, Turkiye, Egypt to hold Gaza talks in Miami
- Under the second stage, Israel is supposed to withdraw from its positions in Gaza
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff will hold talks with senior officials from Qatar, Egypt and Turkiye in Miami on Friday on the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, a White House official told AFP on Thursday.
Under the second stage, Israel is supposed to withdraw from its positions in Gaza, an interim authority is to govern the Palestinian territory instead of Hamas, and an international stabilization force is to be deployed.
But progress has so far been slow in moving to the following phase of October’s agreement between Israel and Hamas, which was brokered by Washington and its regional allies.
Turkiye said Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan would attend the talks. Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al-Thani and Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty would also be there, the Axios news outlet reported.
“Turkiye will continue to fight determinedly on every front to ensure that what is happening in Gaza is not forgotten, that justice is served,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a speech on Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on December 29, Axios said, as the US president pushes for a longer-term deal.
Trump said in a televised address to the nation on Wednesday that the Gaza truce had brought peace to the Middle East “for the first time in 3,000 years.”
But the ceasefire remains fragile with both sides alleging violations, and mediators fearing that Israel and Hamas alike are playing for time.
Israel said it had struck and killed the head of weapons production in Hamas’s military wing in the Gaza Strip last weekend, a move that reportedly sparked Trump to warn of jeopardizing the truce.
Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner played a key role in the shuttle diplomacy that led to the deal to end the Gaza war, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel.
The US pair are also involved in talks to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and will meet Russian officials in Miami over the weekend.
