Turkish authorities captured a total of 361 suspects linked to the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ) in the past two weeks, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced Friday.
The raids, which targeted FETÖ cells in 46 cities across Türkiye, including Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, were the latest in the long-running operations against the terrorist group, which sought to seize power on July 15, 2016, through a foiled coup bid by its military infiltrators.
According to the minister, the captured suspects were wanted for serving the FETÖ network still active in Türkiye, spreading FETÖ propaganda on social media platforms, infiltrating the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and other financial, educational institutions, as well as contacting FETÖ handlers through payphones, and utilizing ByLock, an encrypted messaging app developed and exclusively used by the terrorist group.
The suspects were also marked as “advantageous” candidates in investigations into FETÖ’s fraud for civil servant admission exams.
FETÖ is known for stealing questions and answers to promotion exams to help its members rise in the ranks in the bureaucracy, military and law enforcement, and has been subject to numerous probes on this issue.
Yerlikaya said the suspects also included wanted fugitives who were named in testimonies in ongoing investigations.
FETÖ still has backers in army ranks and civil institutions but they managed to disguise their loyalty, as operations and investigations since the coup attempt have indicated.
The group faced increased scrutiny following the coup attempt that killed 251 people and injured nearly 2,200 others. Tens of thousands of people were detained, arrested or dismissed from public sector jobs following the attempt under a state of emergency.
Hundreds of investigations launched after the attempt sped up the collapse of the group’s far-reaching network in the country.
“With the latest operations, we can see the organization is still attempting to infiltrate various institutions,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said late Wednesday on a flight back from the NATO summit in The Hague. “We have never been and never will be overcome by languor about this.”
The terrorist group faces operations almost daily as investigators still try to unravel their massive network of infiltrators everywhere but an unknown number of FETÖ members, mostly high-ranking figures, fled Türkiye when the coup attempt was thwarted.
Erdoğan also hit out at past attempts to “twist” his government’s statements to highlight the threat of FETÖ.
“But we were always ultimately proven right,” he said.
He assured authorities would root out the remaining FETÖ infiltrators in Turkish institutions, citing the “meticulous work of police and intelligence units.”
“Our struggle against FETÖ will triumph because the threat was not limited to the night of July 15,” Erdoğan said. “The enemy never sleeps, and neither do we.”
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