Turkey has arrested 15 suspects who allegedly worked for Israel’s Mossad special service on its territory, the Turkish daily Sabah reported.
The suspects were reportedly arrested a month ago and provided Mossad with information about Turkish citizens and foreign students studying in the country.
The suspects provided information about students who would potentially work in the military-industrial complex.
The pro-government daily also noted that the operation to arrest the suspects, who it said were Arabs, was carried out by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization after a year of counterintelligence.
Charges are expected to be filed against the suspects, who were reportedly divided into five cells, each consisting of three members.
The Daily Sabah also said they operated in four Turkish provinces and were all arrested during a National Intelligence operation operation on the morning of October 7th.
The suspects were monitored “for about a year using technical and human intelligence methods”, during which time they engaged in espionage focused on Palestinians in Turkey, the newspaper added.
“It was learned that the spy network, which was recruited with money, shared the information it obtained with Mossad for tens of thousands of dollars and euros,” Sabah also revealed.
The radical Islamist Palestinian group Hamas has a command headquarters in Turkey.
Ankara’s relations with Jerusalem have been unstable in recent years. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly tried to position himself as a defender of the Palestinians in the region and launched fierce attacks on Israeli behavior during periods of armed conflict.
Six people suspected of political and military espionage in favor of Russia were also arrested in Turkey, Radio Liberty reported. Four of the detainees are Russian citizens, one with an Uzbek passport and one with a Ukrainian one.
According to the investigation, the six were preparing attacks on Chechen opposition living in Turkey and were buying weapons to carry out their plans, the Hürriyet newspaper reported, citing information from the Turkish prosecutor’s office.
According to a Sabah newspaper, the investigation believes the detainees worked for Russia. They could face 15 to 20 years in prison on espionage charges. It is specified that they are now in Maltepe prison.
So far, the Russian embassy has not commented on the situation.
Kavkaz.Realii reports that the suspects planned to assassinate two people: blogger Hassan Halitov and commander of one of the Chechen jihadist groups in Syria, Rustam Azhiev.
