"Most wanted" ISIS member released in Turkey three days after arrest

Ayşenur İnci, a Turkish citizen with a 1.5 million lira (£283,900) bounty on her head for links to the extremist jihadist Islamic State (ISIS) organisation, has been released three days after she was apprehended by Turkish border police, Turkish secular daily Cumhuriyet reported.

İnci was arrested while entering Turkey from Iraq at the Habur border on Saturday, December 15. She was released on Tuesday on condition of judicial controls after providing testimony to Turkish police, Cumhuriyet newspaper reported.

İnci is a part of Turkey’s “Blue List,” a designation assigned to individuals defined as terrorists who are deemed to be members of a group that poses the second highest level of threat to the country.

On Saturday, a statement from the governorate in Turkey’s southeastern province of Şırnak, where Habur is located, said İnci had taken part in activities for the ISIS cell in Adıyaman, another province in the south-east of Turkey.

The capture and release of an active member of the jihadist group – known in Turkey and much of the Middle East as “Daesh” – came during a highly topical week. Days before İnci was captured, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had criticised the United States’ presence in Syria, claiming they were working in concert with opponents in Turkey and using the fight against the Islamic State as a pretext.

“There is no threat from Daesh any more, it is a fantasy,” Erdoğan said last week, before threatening to launch military operations against Kurdish militias in areas east of the River Euphrates where U.S. troops are also deployed.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a tweet agreeing with Erdoğan’s assessment, declaring the United States’ intention to fully withdraw its troops and State Department personnel from Syria.