ANKARA: Turkish police on Wednesday detained seven suspected members of the Jabhat Al-Nusra organization during a counter-terrorism operation in the capital Ankara.
Anti-terror teams were also hunting four other people still at large and thought to be linked to the movement that was originally established in Syria and has been classified by Turkey as a terror group since 2014.
Simultaneous operations have been taking place against Daesh in Turkey with police recently arresting several senior operatives in various cities.
On Tuesday, police caught 16 Daesh suspects in a countrywide operation in 11 provinces, one day after another suspected Daesh member of Syrian nationality was held in the central Anatolian province of Nigde.
Meanwhile, on Monday, a Daesh suspect named Mustafa Abdulvahap Mahmut, was detained in Istanbul. An explosives specialist who is also being sought by the US, Mahmut was reportedly planning to carry out a terror attack in Turkey. The operation was held jointly between American and Turkish intelligence units.
Last week, a Daesh suspect was stopped by Turkish police 500 meters away from the US Consulate in Istanbul, while another one was detained on the top floor of a nearby building.
In early May, Basim, codenamed Afghan jihadist, one of the closest figures to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the former Daesh chief who was killed two years ago by the US, was detained in Istanbul with a fake passport.
Nihat Ali Ozcan, a senior foreign affairs expert at Ankara-based think tank TEPAV and a former Turkish military commander, told Arab News that Turkey had become the preferred location for Al-Nusra sleeper cells in the region.
“It is not surprising that they are still active in Turkey. They are establishing their link with the outside world through Turkish territories in terms of logistics, networks, and manpower,” he said.
According to Ozcan, their expanded and hidden presence posed a threat not only to Turkish domestic security but also to the West, and Russia.
“The changing parameters in Syria’s rebel-held province of Idlib are also noteworthy because Al-Nusra recently got all small dissident groups under its hegemony and eliminated them. They are now trying to boost their leverage for preserving their authority in the region,” he added.
The dominant rebel group governing Idlib and its surrounding regions is still Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), an offshoot of Al-Nusra Front.
Al-Nusra is amassing chemicals in Idlib to use against civilians and plot a false flag chemical attack in Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry recently claimed.
On Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry’s Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria announced that Jabhat Al-Nusra carried out 46 shelling attacks against Idlib in one day from its positions in Syria.
Experts also noted that similar counter-terrorism operations and the revelations of some underground networks generally happen in spring and summer in Turkey and the frequency of the operations keeps increasing until September when the mobility of the terror groups gradually decreases in the region.
Ozcan did not anticipate a strategic and political collaboration of Al-Nusra and Daesh on Turkish soil at the present time despite members of both groups being caught simultaneously in a week.
“They have a common denominator by hitting Western targets. They can carry out tactical cooperation, but they do not have organic ties and their end targets are different,” he said.
