Turkish police have captured new terrorists in the light of the testimony of Daesh terrorist Abdulgadir Masharipov, the perpetrator of the deadly attack on an Istanbul nightclub during new year's celebrations.
Another Daesh member, M.A., was captured as he was hiding in another cell house in the Başakşehir district of Istanbul, 11 hours after Masharipov's capture. M.A. was discovered to assist Masharipov in the massacre that left 39 people killed in Ortaköy district.
The operation succeeded after the exploratory study of the police around the cell house by masquerading as a real estate agent and florist.
The capture of M.A. is a part of the simultaneous raids that concluded with nabbing more than 140 Daesh terrorists. The number of the detainees doesn't include the families of the terrorists as the families are in custody.
As many as 41 of the 140 Daesh terrorists were discovered to be waiting for orders from Raqqa.
Another finding of the police revealed that Masharipov's first attack plan was a suicide attack, however the plan was foiled as the bomb courier of the terrorist organization had been captured with a large amount of explosives in a separate operation.
Since Masharipov couldn't receive enough explosives to conduct an attack, so he proceeded by implementing plan B.
During the operation that concluded with Masharipov's capture, two handguns, $197,000 in cash, two aerial drones and SIM cards were seized in the raid on the Esenyurt cell.
The investigation into the attack has involved 2,000 police officers and involved examining 2,700 hours of camera footage.
During the investigation, it was discovered that Masharipov attempted to flee Istanbul by boarding a bus to Hatay from Istanbul.
However, his plan was foiled by the tip-off of eyewitnesses who realized that the terrorist was in the main bus station of Istanbul.
While Masharipov escaped being arrested, two other Daesh terrorists were captured by police in the operation on January 12.
The terrorist reached Taksim on New Year's night, intending to launch an attack against Taksim Square in Istanbul's city center. However, the tight security measures made the Uzbek-origin Daesh terrorist change his mind, so he changed his direction, went to Zeytinburnu district to grab the Kalashnikov and then went to Reina night club over the demand of the Daesh terrorists.
Turkish police officers discovered 15 of the 70 terrorists were trained as suicide bombers, as more terrorists had planned to target other points of the city.
The operations were not conducted in Istanbul but also in Kayseri, Konya, Hatay and Izmir provinces of Turkey.
On Wednesday, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and East Turkistan-origin suspects were detained in Turkey's Bursa province for their suspected links to the assault, whose perpetrator was caught in Istanbul on Monday.
As many as 27 people have been detained in Bursa province for their alleged links with the terrorist attack that hit a nightclub in Turkey's Istanbul city in the early hours of New Year's Day.
The detainees include 15 women, and 29 children were accompanying 27 people who were detained in the Daesh operation.
The detainees include suspects of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and East Turkistan origin.
During the raids in Nilüfer and Gürsu towns of Bursa, more than 40 passports and 38 fake IDs, along with 15 mobile phones, were seized.
Also, in Izmir and Bursa, two other terrorists linked with the attack were captured.
On Monday, January 16, 2017, Abdulgadir Masharipov, the perpetrator of the deadly attack on an Istanbul nightclub during new year's celebrations, was found in Istanbul.
He was captured during a police operation on a residence in Istanbul's Esenyurt district, after a review of 100,000 hours of CCTV records by Turkish police over the course of 16 days.
Terrorist Masharipov is suspected to have entered Turkey in January 2016.
At least 39 people, including a police officer, were killed when a gunman opened fire on civilians at a nightclub in the Ortaköy district of Istanbul in the early hours of New Year's Day; 69 others were also wounded, with a number of foreign nationals among the casualties.
