According to a senior Turkish official, 34 people have been detained by Turkish authorities on suspicion of being associated with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and of targeting Palestinians residing in Turkey. The official also mentioned that Mossad recruited members in Turkey.
Turkey’s government threatened to impose “serious consequences” on Israel last month if it attempted to track down Hamas militants who were living outside of Palestinian territory, including in Turkey. Tayyip Erdogan, the president, cautioned that would be a mistake. Turkey does not consider Hamas to be a terrorist organisation, in contrast to the majority of its Western allies and certain Arab countries.
According to the official, police conducted raids in eight provinces as part of an investigation led by the Istanbul prosecutor’s counterterrorism bureau and the MIT intelligence agency.
The official stated, “The Israeli Intelligence Service is recruiting personnel to be used in acts against Palestinians residing in our country and their families.” It further stated that contacts were maintained via encrypted messaging platforms after job postings on social media were used to establish contact.
“It uses intermediaries/live couriers for payments to be made to its contacts. It tries to lose trace of the money by using cryptocurrency and a (money) transfer system,” adding that Turkey would keep up its operations against individuals connected to Mossad.
Prior to this, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya stated that the suspects were being held in 57 places, including Istanbul, as part of an operation known as “Operation Mole,” and that it was thought their goal was to locate, track, attack, and abduct foreign nationals.
According to the official, the suspects were also committing robberies, extortion, and the dissemination of false information for Israeli intelligence. According to the source, Mossad set up meetings and training sessions for the suspects overseas.
