World Bulletin / News Desk

Istanbul police have taken 10 people into custody early Thursday morning in anti-terror operations across Turkey’s largest city.

Anti-terror squads backed by police helicopters raided several houses and offices in Istanbul's Bagcilar district, according to police sources.

During the raids targeting ISIL, 10 suspects have been detained. Sources said that the operation was ongoing and further arrests are to be expected.

Nearly 300 suspected ISIL members have been detained in the first nine months of the year, the Turkish prime minister’s office said Wednesday.

Over the same period, tons of explosives and materials used in the fabrication of bombs, including TNT and other chemicals, were seized, as well as firearms and grenades.

Since Monday, when two Turkish police officers were killed in a raid on a ISIL hideout in the southeastern Diyarbakir province, security forces have arrested 65 suspects in anti-terror raids across Konya, Kocaeli and Istanbul provinces, security sources said.

ISIL is said to have carried out the Oct. 10 Ankara bombing that killed 102 people at rally for peace as well as the July 20 Suruc attack that killed 33.

It was also behind the bombings of HDP offices and a rally in Diyarbakir before the June 7 general election that killed four people, the Ankara chief prosecutor’s office said Wednesday.