Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Wednesday that 41 suspects linked to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) were captured in “Operation Clamp.”
Operations were conducted in nine provinces, from the capital, Ankara and Istanbul, to Ordu in the north. Yerlikaya said in a social media post that their fight against the group following the death of its ringleader had no complacency. “We will continue our fight until this treacherous network that attempted to carry out a coup on national will is eliminated,” Yerlikaya wrote.
The captured suspects were members of a secret network of FETÖ within the military, authorities said. Some suspects were in touch with high-ranking fugitive members of the group and were hiding in “absence houses” (safe houses) of FETÖ. Suspects were also charged with using Bylock, an encrypted messaging app developed and exclusively used by the terrorist group.
Türkiye on Tuesday marked the 11th anniversary of a coup attempt by the terrorist group, the first in a string of similar attempts. On Dec. 17, 2013, the group’s infiltrators in police and judiciary sought to implicate names close to the government in a graft probe based on false evidence. The attempt was thwarted, but FETÖ tried the same plot again on Dec. 25, 2013. In the ensuing operations, authorities have arrested FETÖ-linked police chiefs and judiciary officials behind the attempts. However, the terrorist group turned to its military infiltrators for another coup attempt on Jul. 15, 2016. This time, a strong public resistance quashed the bid. Since this last attempt, authorities have stepped up operations against the terrorist group and issued arrest warrants for thousands in operations in the past eight years. In a statement on the anniversary, Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said on Tuesday that they were resolute in the fight against evil forces trying to shackle Türkiye. “A mindset that hindered Türkiye’s progress with coups almost every decade tried to achieve its goals again through FETÖ, which insidiously infiltrated into the state and through law enforcement and judiciary,” Tunç said.