As security forces intensify counterterrorism operations, seven suspects have been arrested in the investigation against the Gülenist Terror Group’s (FETÖ) secret structure within the Turkish Land Forces Command, according to the Ankara Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The office said on Tuesday that as part of the investigation, detention orders were issued for 10 suspects, including two previously dismissed colonels, one major, one noncommissioned officer and six military students, who were found to have communicated with the so-called civilian imams of the organization using landline telephones. Seven of these suspects have been caught by the Ankara police’s counterterrorism department, it added.
Another 11 suspects have been arrested from the terrorist group’s student structure in Istanbul and Kocaeli provinces through an investigation of the Istanbul public prosecutor’s office. These suspects had been engaging students in primary and high school with terrorist propaganda.
It was determined that the suspects organized events such as cinema, bowling, trips and camps to increase the children of families connected and affiliated with the organization.
Meanwhile, 40 FETÖ suspects were also arrested in six provinces through an operation centered in western Izmir. Coordinated by the Istanbul public prosecutor’s office and carried out by the police’s counterterrorism and intelligence units, FETÖ’s current educational activities were uncovered. An arrest warrant was issued for 45 suspects who were aiding terrorist members who planned to flee abroad illegally and who continued FETÖ’s activities in cell houses. The operations were conducted simultaneously in Izmir, Ankara, Aydın, Balıkesir, Kocaeli and Denizli provinces. Money and digital material belonging to the organization were also seized. Efforts for the remaining five fugitives are continuing, three of whom are abroad.
On the other hand, the cousin of late FETÖ figure Kemalettin Gülen was arrested on separate charges for insulting Türkiye’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on social media.
The Istanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office issued a detention order for the suspect on charges of “Law on Crimes Committed Against Atatürk” and “insulting the president.”
The terrorist group orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, in Türkiye, in which 252 people were killed and 2,734 were wounded. Ankara also accuses FETÖ of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.
Türkiye has targeted its active members and sleeper cells nonstop, and its influence has been much reduced since 2016.
However, the group maintains a vast network, including infiltrators suspected of still operating within Turkish institutions.
FETÖ backers in army ranks and civil institutions have disguised their loyalty, as operations and investigations have indicated since the 2016 coup attempt. FETÖ is also implicated in a string of cases related to its alleged plots to imprison its critics, money laundering, fraud and forgery.
The terrorist group faces operations almost daily as investigators still try to unravel their massive network of infiltrators everywhere. In 2024 alone, police apprehended hundreds of FETÖ suspects across the country, including fugitives on western borders trying to flee to Europe.
Those apprehended mainly were low-ranking members of the group, as high-ranking members managed to flee the country before and immediately after the coup attempt.
Still, security forces occasionally capture key figures of the group who managed to remain in hiding, such as Cihat Yıldız. Yıldız, accused of helping the escape of Adil Öksüz, the civilian mastermind of the 2016 coup attempt, was captured during a police check in August in Istanbul.
Turkish security sources also say the group is in turmoil after the death of its leader, Fetullah Gülen, in October last year.
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