Turkish anti-terror police arrested 65 Islamic State suspects in anti-terror raids in three Turkish provinces on Tuesday, a day after seven IS suspects were killed and 12 arrested in the southeast, the Anadolu news agency reported.
Tuesday's raids took place in Konya, Kocaeli and Istanbul provinces. Thirty suspects were detained in Konya in central Anatolia, 14 others in Kocaeli in northwest Turkey and 21 suspects were held in Istanbul’s Sultanbeyli, Pendik and Umraniye districts, according to the sources cited by Anadolu.
The latest arrests come just days before a snap general election set for 1 November.
Two policeman were killed in a shootout with IS militants during a counter-terrorism raid by Turkish security forces on Monday at a residential building in Diyarbakir province.
Meanwhile, the army said it arrested 17 IS suspects near the border with Syria trying to enter the war-torn neighbour.
Turkey has began a wave of operations targeting IS, which it blames for several terrorist attacks, most recently a twin blast that killed 102 people at a pro-Kurdish peace rally in the Turkish capital of Ankara on 10 October.
Anadolu said there had been "several" arrests across Turkey since a suicide bomber killed 34 people in July at a pro-Kurdish rally in Suruc, southern Turkey, an attack which the government also blamed on IS.
The government has also detained hundreds of members of leftist groups and the armed Kurdistan Workers‘ Party (PKK).
Conflict with the PKK has also since restarted, leaving hundreds dead inside Turkey.
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