Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced a nationwide operation against the terrorist group Daesh on Friday. Authorities have detained 304 people suspected of having ties to the terrorist group in operations across 32 provinces.

The majority of the suspects were detained in Türkiye's three biggest cities of Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir, Yerlikaya said on social messaging platform X. He said the operation, "Operation Heroes-34," was carried out simultaneously across the country. "We will not allow any terrorists to open their eyes, for the peace and unity of our people. We will continue our battle with the intense efforts of our security forces," he said, sharing footage of the operations that showed police entering apartments and buildings and dragging suspects into vehicles.

Daesh controlled one-third of Iraq and Syria at its 2014 peak. Though beaten back, it continues to wage attacks. It has conducted numerous attacks across Türkiye, including on a nightclub in Istanbul on Jan. 1, 2017, in which 39 people were killed.

Authorities have ramped up operations against Daesh and the PKK in recent weeks, after a PKK terrorist detonated a bomb near government buildings in Ankara on Oct. 1. Türkiye regularly conducts operations at home and in northern Iraq on the PKK.

Earlier this month, Turkish intelligence and security forces captured a top Daesh terrorist in charge of the terrorist group’s finances in the Damascus region in an operation in Türkiye’s southeastern Mersin province.

Terrorist Hudhaifa al-Mouri, codenamed "Ayyoub," who was responsible for coordinating funds sent to Daesh terrorist members, was nabbed in a joint operation coordinated by the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and the police. Over $28,000, 14,950 euros ($16,454.78), TL 31,800 ($1,088.76) and digital materials were confiscated in the operation. Security forces also discovered the mobile apps used by Daesh terrorists to transfer funds. In his testimony, al-Mouri talked about how he joined the terrorist group, their activities in Türkiye and Syria, the terrorists he has been in contact with, as well as money transfers.

Daesh remains the second biggest threat of terrorism for Türkiye, which faces security risks from multiple terrorist groups. In 2013, Türkiye became one of the first countries to declare Daesh a terrorist group. The country has since been attacked by the terrorist group multiple times, with over 300 people killed and hundreds more injured in at least 10 suicide bombings, seven bomb attacks and four armed attacks. In response, Türkiye launched counterterrorism operations at home and abroad to prevent further attacks.

Terrorists from Daesh and other groups such as the PKK and its Syrian wing, the YPG, rely on a network of members and supporters in Türkiye. In response, Ankara has been intensifying its crackdown on the terrorists and their links at home, conducting pinpoint operations and freezing assets to eliminate the terrorist groups from their roots. Türkiye deported 9,000 foreign terrorist fighters, mainly from Daesh, from 102 different nationalities, of which 1,168 are from the U.S. or the European Union member countries, since 2011. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Romania, Sweden and Austria were the leading EU countries in terms of deported foreign terrorists.

Since its formal defeat in Iraq in 2017 and significant loss of territory in Syria since 2015, Daesh has been leading its operations underground besides losing its leaders to military operations. The group’s last three leaders, all Iraqis, were killed in Syria in recent years outside areas it once purported to rule. The Daesh leader, Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the successor of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi who committed suicide during a U.S. raid earlier in 2022, was killed in mid-October last year by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in southern Syria, as confirmed by the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). In April, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that al-Qurayshi's successor Abu al-Hussein al-Qurayshi, was "neutralized" in an operation conducted by Türkiye’s MIT in Syria. "Neutralized" is a term used by Turkish officials to describe the killing or capture of terrorists and in most cross-border operations, it means their killing. Daesh has selected al-Qurayshi as its leader in November 2022.

A U.S.-led coalition force still raids Daesh "officials" in Syria. In addition, the U.S., under the pretext of this "fight" against Daesh, supplies military equipment and training to PKK/YPG, another terrorist group, despite protests by Türkiye, which both terrorist groups target.

In the past, Daesh would claim victories only dreamt of by al-Qaida, seizing vast stretches of territory that spanned the heart of the Middle East. At its height, the terrorist group controlled roughly one-third of Syria and 40% of Iraq amid widespread instability, claiming major cities, including Mosul and Raqqa, and bringing an iron-fisted rule that attracted people worldwide. Its gruesome violence was spread worldwide, with videos of human immolation and beheadings circulating online. It later directed and inspired vicious terror attacks that killed innocents in London, Paris, Istanbul, New York City and Orlando, Florida.

The U.S.-led coalition would claim victory in erasing the terror group’s territorial holdings in 2019, the same year the U.S. killed Baghdadi, the man whose name was synonymous with the terror group’s heinous violence, slavery and mass rape. His death and the rollback of Daesh’s territorial holdings were major milestones in the U.S.’ global countertenor operations. Still, the terrorist group continues to plot attacks in the region and beyond, with local branches and sleeper cells operating in the Middle East, Africa and South and Central Asia.

The Sabah newspaper has recently reported that Türkiye obtained a valued database of the terrorist group, containing names and information about 9,952 "lone wolf" terrorists after a successful operation carried out in the past months by police in Istanbul. The existence of the database, which contains biographical information about lone wolf terrorists, from their skills to their residence and ID information was known to most intelligence agencies from the CIA and MI6 to Mossad. Intelligence agencies assigned 40 agents in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan to track down the database known to be in possession of Daesh members in those countries. A Daesh courier arrived in Istanbul for the sale of the database while Istanbul police launched the operation. The courier was intercepted at the arrivals terminal of Istanbul Airport and the database was found in his possession.

Lone wolf attacks are the most sinister threat of Daesh, which lost territory it seized in Iraq and Syria as its clout waned amid counterterrorism operations in those two countries. Lone wolves of Daesh are responsible for the killing of 50 people on June 12, 2016, at a Florida nightclub and the killing of 84 people in France’s Nice when a truck plowed through a crowd. In Türkiye, Abdulkadir Masharipov, a lone wolf of Kyrgyz origin, slaughtered 39 people in a popular Istanbul nightclub as revelers gathered to welcome the New Year on Jan. 1, 2017.