It followed the revolt two weeks ago in The Hague and Stockholm around the tearing up and burning of a Koran. Turkish media reports that the intelligence agency feared that the Afghan branch of the terror group had ordered backers in Turkey to carry out the attacks.
Fifteen arrests
Police have begun tracking and spying on the suspects and arrested 15 of them, because they are said to have ties to the Islamic State. But the intelligence services and the police have been unable to uncover any preparations or plans for attacks or other violent actions, according to media reports. The suspects have been taken into custody.
Two weeks ago in The Hague and Stockholm, two far-right activists, Edwin Wagensveld and Rasmus Paluden, tore up a Koran in a protest and the other blindfolded a Koran, provoking strong reactions in the Islamic world. In Istanbul, not only the consulates of Holland and Sweden, but also those of six other European countries and the USA were closed for security reasons. According to the Turkish government, this is a disproportionate measure which wrongly puts Turkey in a bad light. It is not clear whether the closure of the consulates has anything to do with the investigation launched by MIT and a special unit of the Istanbul police.