ANKARA — Police in Turkey have arrested more than 300 people for suspected links to the Islamic State (ISIS) militant group during sweeping raids across the country, the Turkish Interior Minister has announced.

“304 individuals were arrested during the “Hero-34” operation carried out simultaneously in 32 cities against the terrorist organisation Daesh," Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X.

Daesh refers to the Arabic acronym for the Islamic fundamentalist group.

Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, were among the 32 localities where the police operation was carried out.

Some 86 people were arrested in the city of Istanbul alone, Yerlikaya said.

Turkey suffered numerous terror attacks between 2015 and 2017 - some of which were attributed to ISIS.

In January 2017, an attack on a nightclub in Istanbul, claimed by ISIS, left 39 dead, while 109 people were killed in October 2015 in another attack attributed to the jihadist group in front of Ankara central station. — Euronews