Turkey says it arrested 90 people with suspected links to IS

Turkey on Monday says it has arrested 90 people with suspected links to Islamic State jihadist group, two weeks after a deadly shootout outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul.

A total of 198 people were detained a day after the April 7 attack in a nationwide sweep against “the terrorist organization Daesh,” another name for the Islamic State terror group.

The 90 other suspects arrested in 24 of Turkey’s 81 provinces include “members of the terrorist organization,… people… involved in its financing… and suspects disseminating propaganda,” the interior ministry says.

Authorities have not officially connected these arrests to the shootout outside the Israeli consulate in which two police officers were wounded.

One of the three gunmen, who was killed by the police, was linked “to a terrorist organization that instrumentalizes religion,” the authorities said, without naming IS.

At the end of December, three Turkish police officers were killed during an anti-IS operation in the northwestern province of Yalova.

Six suspects, all Turkish nationals, were also shot dead in clashes that lasted several hours.