Turkish police have detained hundreds of suspected ISIL members in nationwide raids, according to state media, in the largest operations in the country to target the armed group.

About 820 suspects, most of them foreign nationals, were arrested in at least 29 provinces, including capital Ankara and southeastern provinces, state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Operations took place on Sunday and Monday.

"This is the largest coordinated and simultaneous raids that Turkey has taken out on what it says are 'suspected members of ISIL' across the country," Al Jazeera's Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Gaziantep, said.

READ MORE: Turkey, US-coalition jets 'kill 47 ISIL fighters'

She added that the operation signalled Turkey's clear intentions to give a "message that it is clamping down" on the armed group.

"Turkey has suffered multiple attacks either claimed by ISIL or inspired by it," Dekker said.

The Turkish government holds ISIL, which stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and is also known as ISIS, responsible for several attacks in Turkey.

Most recently, ISIL claimed responsibility for a New Year's Eve attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul in which 39 people were killed.

Police arrested the suspected attacker, Abdulgadir Masharipov, an Uzbek national, on January 16 and authorities say he has confessed to the massacre.

Turkish troops are also engaged in battles against ISIL fighters in the Syrian town of al-Bab, in the fiercest fighting yet of Ankara's military's campaign inside Syria that started in August.

At least 48 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the incursion so far, according to an AFP news agency tally.</s>Turkish police have arrested around 400 suspected members of Islamic State.

The suspects were arrested in a series of raids across the country.

About 150 of them were detained near the border with Syria, and 60 in the capital Ankara.

Turkish news agencies are reporting a number of those arrested are suspected of planning attacks.</s>Due to its continued efforts to nab Islamic States of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) members who are plotting attacks against Turkey, the Turkish police were able to arrest around 400 ISIL suspects across the European country in a nationwide operation.

REUTERS/Murad SezerA Turkish soldier stands guard while smoke rises in the Syrian town of Kobani as it is seen from the Turkish border town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province, Turkey, June 26, 2015.

In a report by the Turkish state media, which was picked up by various news outlets, it was detailed that this past Sunday night, around 400 potential members, mostly foreigners, of the notorious terrorist group have been detained. The operation, which covered six provinces, is currently dubbed the biggest roundup of supposed rebel members in the country thus far.

During the nationwide campaign, at least 60 suspected ISIL members were caught in the capital city of Ankara, while 150 more were arrested near the Syrian border in a small town called Sanliurfa. Meanwhile, the latest mission, which is a simultaneous bust in Konya province, brought 30 supposed terrorists under custody with 10 more held in Adiyaman province.

Meanwhile, a separate report from The New York Times delves deeper into how the ISIL group plans its attacks in other countries in which they do not have a base. As it turns out, some of these terrorists would coach someone from the targeted place who is willing to carry out an attack by himself or herself. The attacker will be coached online by the virtual plotters who will also deliver the weapons needed for their plan.

"They are virtual coaches who are providing guidance and encouragement throughout the process — from radicalization to recruitment into a specific plot," terrorism analyst at Valens Global, Nathaniel Barr, alongside Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, wrote on the War on the Rocks website detailing how the setup usually works. "If you look at the communications between the attackers and the virtual plotters, you will see that there is a direct line of communication to the point where they are egging them on minutes, even seconds, before the individual carries out an attack," Barr further noted.

Due to this, attacks across Europe, Asia and the United States, which were originally perceived to be carried out by single entities with no ties to ISIL were later discovered to have been part of this scheme along. This includes the attack on a community center in Garland, Texas back in 2015 in which someone suddenly opened fire with an assault rifle.</s>Police in Turkey on Sunday arrested at least 448 suspected Islamic State members in nationwide raids. The police operation is the biggest in the country since the attack on an Istanbul nightclub on January 1, in which 39 people were killed, AFP reported. The Islamic State group had said that they had carried out the attack to avenge deaths in Syria at the hands of Turkish military forces.

At least 150 Syrians were among those arrested, with several other people being picked up from regions bordering Syria. Sixty suspects, mostly foreigners, were arrested from four districts in Ankara. Dozens of other arrests were made in the eastern and western provinces of the country. Former Turkish diplomat Sinan Ulgen said the raids represented a change in strategy by the country’s police, who have till now only detained small numbers of suspected militants.

However, the arrests may not lead to any prosecutions, as the country’s efforts against the Islamic State “is still handicapped by discrepancies between the different arms of the Turkish state” Ulgen said, according to The New York Times. Former counterterrorism official Ahmet Yayla also questioned the effectiveness of the raid, saying that it could overwhelm the police’s operational capacity. “It is impossible to process that many terrorists in one operation,” Yayla said.

The attack on the Reina nightclub is the first such incident in Turkey that the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for, even though the group has been blamed for several bombings in 2016. The main suspect in the shooting was arrested on January 17. Abdulkadir Masharipov, an Uzbek national, was arrested from the Esenyurt district in Ankara. The Turkish police had detained 35 people in connection with the incident before arresting Masharipov.</s>Turkish police have arrested 400 suspected members of the Islamic State terrorist organisation in several provinces, state media said, the biggest roundup to target the organisation in Turkey.

The state-run news agency, Anadolu, reported on Sunday that 150 of the suspects were arrested in the southern province of Sanliurfa on the border with Syria.

The report stated that 60 suspects were arrested in the capital Ankara, with majority of those arrested non-Turkish nationals.

Other raids were carried out in Istanbul, in the western city of Izmir, in the southern city of Adana and in Konya in the centre of the country.

The Turkish Government holds Islamic State responsible for several terrorist attacks in Turkey.

Most recently, Islamic State claimed responsibility for the New Year’s Eve attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul in which 39 people were killed.

The main suspect in that attack has been arrested and remained in police custody.

The Turkish army has been involved in the fight against Islamic State in neighbouring Syria since August 2016.

The Turkish Air Force launched a series of airstrikes around the city of al-Bab in northern Syria over the past 24 hours, Anadolu reported on Sunday.

The report claimed that 33 Islamic State fighters had been “neutralized,” the military term for killed, injured or arrested.

Earlier on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported that Islamic State had retaken control of the town of Bazaah near al-Bab the previous day following a counter-attack against Turkish-backed Syrian rebels that involved suicide attacks.</s>More than 400 suspects detained in nationwide operations, in Turkey's biggest roundup targeting the armed group.

Turkish police have detained hundreds of suspected ISIL members in nationwide raids, according to state media, in the biggest roundup to target the armed group in Turkey.

More than 400 suspects, most of them foreign nationals, were arrested during operations conducted in at least 18 provinces, Anadolu news agency reported on Sunday.

At least 60 people were held in the capital, Ankara, while 150 were arrested in Sanliurfa in the southeast and a further 47 in the nearby city of Gaziantep close to the Syrian border.

In the Aegean province of Izmir, security forces held at least nine suspected ISIL members who were allegedly preparing for an attack.

Another 18 people were arrested in Istanbul and the neighbouring province of Kocaeli on suspicion of planning attacks. Fourteen foreigners, including 10 children, were due to be deported.

The Turkish government holds ISIL, which stands for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and is also known as ISIS, responsible for several attacks in Turkey. 



Most recently, ISIL claimed responsibility for a New Year's Eve attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul in which 39 people were killed.

Police detained the suspected attacker, Abdulgadir Masharipov, an Uzbek national, on January 16 and authorities say he has confessed to the massacre.

Turkish troops are also engaged in battles against ISIL fighters in the Syrian town of al-Bab, in the fiercest fighting yet of Ankara's military's campaign inside Syria that started in August.

At least 48 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the incursion so far, according to an AFP news agency tally.</s>Turkish police have reportedly detained approximately 400 members of Islamic State (Isis) in raids across the country on Sunday (5 February).

Those arrested include foreigners and alleged terrorists suspected of planning attacks, reported Turkish news agency Anadolu.

Raids have been carried out in the capital of Ankara, where 60 people were detained, in addition to 150 suspects detained in Sanliurfa in the southeast.

Dozens more have been detained in provinces ranging from Bursa in the west to Bingol in the east.

This is a breaking story. More to follow...</s>Turkish police on Sunday detained hundreds of suspected members of the Islamic State extremist group in nationwide raids, just over a month after an attack on an Istanbul nightclub claimed by the jihadists. Among around 400 detained in the biggest operation so far against IS after the New Year attack were foreigners and those suspected of planning attacks in Turkey, the Dogan and Anadolu news agencies reported.

Start the conversation, or Read more at News Max.</s>Ongoing political unrest and terror attacks are familiar to Turkish residents. However, accelerating violence — including the assassination of a Russian ambassador by a rogue Turkish cop and a nightclub mass shooting, in which a terrorist killed dozens — has prompted the government to make major crackdowns against the Islamic State. ABC News reveals how a series of Sunday morning anti-terrorism raids ended in the arrest of 445 people by Turkish security forces.

Multiple alleged ISIS cells were infiltrated by authorities in these simultaneous raids. When all was said and done, Turkish State TV (via ABC News) reports that the capital city of Ankara yielded the arrests of 60 suspects with the bulk of the remaining arrests happening in Sanliurfa (where over 150 were arrested), Istanbul, and Gaziantep. Of those arrested, nine were reportedly close to carrying out a terror attack in Izmir.

A majority of those who were detained are foreigners with ISIS connections. Many of them are suspected of Islamic State recruitment efforts and have participated in active combat zones. The Independent reveals how significant these raids were in terms of the sheer quantity of arrests. In only a few hours, Turkey more than doubled the number of suspected ISIS terrorists in custody to 780 total detainees.</s>At least 60 suspected jihadis were arrested in Ankara, just over a month after a terror attack on Istanbul which claimed the lives of 39 people.

The New Year's Eve night club attack saw a gunman go on the rampage with a machine gun in the club. Most of the victims were foreign nationals.

This morning's raids saw Turkish police arrest the suspects - including foreign nationals - who are believed to have been planning attacks.

The operation around the country saw 150 suspects detained in Sanliurfa in the southeast, 60 in the capital Ankara as well as dozens more arrests in provinces ranging from Bursa in the west to Bingol in the east, the Dogan and Anadolu news agencies reported.

The New Year's Eve attack was the first time ISIS claimed responsibility for an atrocity in Turkey, although it had been suspected of several bombings during 2016.

Police detained the suspected New Year's Eve attacker, Abdulgadir Masharipov, an Uzbek national, on January 16 after over over two weeks on the run and authorities say he has confessed to the massacre.

The Hurriyet daily reported after the attack that ISIS also planned a simultaneous New Year's strike in Ankara but dropped the plot after arrests by the Turkish authorities.
Turkish police arrest over 400 suspected ISIL members in raids across the country.