DUSHANBE, October 22, 2015, Asia-Plus –
Ferghana
news agency reported on October 21 that Turkey’s newspaper
Timeturk
has issued an apology after mistakenly reporting that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) training sites for children were uncovered in basement apartments in Istanbul.
Those alleged training camps for children reportedly proved to be schools for children of “peaceful labor migrants and political refugees from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.”
Uzbek dissent Muhammad Salih, who now lives in Istanbul, told
Ferghana.ru
that teenagers detained during the raids are not children of terrorists but they are children of refugees who fled persecutions in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan or Moscow.
We will recall that Turkish authorities have reportedly discovered the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) training camps for children in basements hidden in Istanbul.
According to Turkish daily
Hurriyet News
, Istanbul Police Department Counterterrorism Unit stormed 18 homes in the city”s Pendik and Baakehir district, where rented apartments had been converted into training camps to educate children on how to live under ISIL rule in Syria and Iraq. Police reportedly uncovered battlefield maps as well as documents describing the group’s contacts in both countries.
Around 50 suspects, mostly Uzbeks, were detained in the October 18 raids,
Hurriyet News
reported.
Turkish authorities have for some time been conducting physical and technical surveillance of a terrorist training group, consisting mostly of Uzbek nationals but also including some Tajik nationals; members of the group had snuck into Istanbul from Turkey’s eastern provinces and established their base of operations in the neighborhood of Pendik, on the city’s Asian side.
Having determined that the group was preparing to leave for Syria and Iraq to join the ISIL ranks, units from the Istanbul Police Department Counterterrorism Bureau conducted simultaneous late-night raids over the weekend at several locations that were purportedly operating as schools, where Uzbek and Tajik children were taught about the Islamic State and trained as to how they would live after moving to ISIL territory, according to daily
Vatan
.
The officers raided 18 homes in the “Pendik and Basaksehir’s Kayasehir neighborhood.” The houses reportedly contained “battlefield maps as well as documents describing the group’s contacts in both countries.” Other evidence led the Turkish authorities to believe the group intended to meet ISIL in Syria and Iraq.
29 adults were taken to the Counterterrorism Bureau at the Istanbul Aksaray Police Station for questioning. The 24 juveniles were taken to the Pendik Police Department Juvenile Bureau. Police are investigating claims that the children were to be sent to join ISIL.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan declared its allegiance to ISIL in August, and around 5000 Uzbek nationals are thought to be already fighting alongside ISIL militants in Syria and Iraq.
Turkey has stepped up anti-terror police operations against ISIL militants in the country, as the October 10 twin blasts in the Turkish capital sent shockwaves through the country, with at least 102 civilians dead and hundreds of others injured.
Thirteen ISIL-linked suspects have reportedly been detained so far within the investigation launched into the Ankara bombing.
