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Turkey: Top IS Militant Suspected of Planning Attack on Hagia Sophia Arrested

Ezel Sahinkaya

   WASHINGTON - The Turkish police said they have arrested Mahmut Ozden, a
   major Islamic State (IS) figure in Turkey suspected of planning an
   attack on the newly converted Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul.

   "Daesh's so-called emir of Turkey had been caught and remanded in
   custody with important plans," Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu
   said in announcing the arrest on Twitter Tuesday, using the Arabic
   acronym for the Islamic State.

   Ozden and three others were detained in southern Adana province on
   August 20. An Istanbul court ordered his official arrest on Monday.

   According to Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency, Ozden's arrest came as
   a result of an operation last month by Istanbul Police Department based
   on some intelligence that the IS was planning an attack on the Hagia
   Sophia and several other institutions. During the August 18 operation,
   police captured a suspected IS member, Huseyin Sagir, in a hotel in
   Istanbul with an AK-47 and five cartridges.

   Turkish officials said information discovered during Sagir's
   investigation led police to Ozden, who had received orders from
   high-ranking IS militants through encrypted messaging apps.

   Interior Minister Soylu said that several digital materials seized by
   the police during Ozden's house search indicated that he was planning
   to carry out his attacks through groups of 10 to 12 people.

   "Police also seized plans to kidnap politicians and statesmen to take
   them to Syria and for acts against groups that could harm the Turkish
   economy," Soylu said to reporters Tuesday during inspection in Giresun,
   a city in the Black Sea region recently hit by deadly floods.

   'Turkey emir'

   Turkish local media reported that since 2017 Ozden has been detained at
   least three times on different charges. He allegedly identified himself
   as Turkey's southern province of Adana "emir," an Islamic title used by
   IS to refer to its top leaders.

   Dogu Eroglu, the author of "ISIS Networks: Radicalisation,
   Organisation, Logistics in Turkey," said that despite the Turkish
   government's claim that Ozden was an IS emir, it remains uncertain
   whether the title can be applied to the suspected militant.

   "I can say that the term has been used wrongly in most instances
   because being the Turkey emir of the Islamic State definitely means
   some sort of network, hierarchy and a chain of a command structure,"
   Eroglu said, adding that the group in the past has labeled the entirety
   of Turkey as a "wilayat" or province with no reference to Adana.

   In a propaganda video released by Islamic State's al-Furqan media in
   April 2019, the terror group's then-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
   appeared holding notes referring to Turkey as a "wilayat." In another
   propaganda video in July 2019, the group showed a group of militants
   from "Turkey wilayat" pledging allegiance to al-Baghdadi.

   "Do not think that the swords of the soldiers of the caliphate are far
   from you or from those who stand on your side," an IS militant
   identified as Abu Qatada al-Turki threatened Turkish President Recep
   Tayyip Erdogan, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence
   Group.

   In a report released in June, the International Crisis Group reported
   that the 16 attacks perpetrated by the IS terror group in Turkey
   between 2014 and 2017 killed nearly 300 civilians.

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