Forty-three people who were detained for alleged links to the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the central Turkish province of Konya on Dec. 16 have been released.
Anti-terrorism police units conducted simultaneous raids on 43 locations on the morning of Dec.16, with 200 police officers taking part. A total of 43 ISIL suspects were detained during the operations. Seventeen of the suspects were released after interrogation at the police station, while 20 of them were released on judicial probation by the prosecutor’s office on Friday.
Over the past one-and-a-half years, ISIL has carried out a number of deadly attacks in Turkey that claimed the lives of around 200 people. On Oct. 10, 2015, ISIL perpetrated the most violent terrorist attack in Turkey’s history, killing 104 people in Ankara when two of its suicide bombers blew themselves up.
On Thursday, Turkey was also shaken by a video released by ISIL showing two Turkish soldiers being burned to death.
ISIL allegedly burned alive two Turkish soldiers who it took hostage three weeks ago in the al-Bab region of northern Syria.
The video came a day after 16 Turkish soldiers were killed and 31 injured in ISIL attacks in al-Bab.
As part of an operation called Euphrates Shield, Turkey sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels drive ISIL from the border city of Jarabulus on Aug. 24, in a dramatic escalation of its involvement in the Syrian civil war.