ISTANBUL (AP) – Turkey’s anti-terrorism police have detained over 440 people for alleged links to the Islamic State group, the state-run agency reported Sunday.
The Anadolu Agency said 60 IS 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 Islamic State militants.
Security forces also apprehended nine suspects who were allegedly preparing an attack in the northwestern city of Izmir.