Turkey has detained in Syria a member of the Islamic State group who organised terror attacks in Russia and Germany, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Friday, November 22, according to Hurriyet.

“We have captured in Syria’s A’zaz one of the key Daesh (Islamic State - Ed.) terrorists, a member of the top leadership of the group, nicknamed Yusuf Huba. He used to produce bombs and to teach other people to do it, including through the Internet, he used to recruit militants, and he has created a network of suicide attackers, he used to stage terror attacks and murders with use of poison. He arranged a terror attack in Russia in 2018 and in Germany’s Hamburg as well”, Soylu said, Sputnik reports.

According to the interior minister, the detained militant was engaged in arranging 20 terror attacks. Syria’s A’zaz passed to Turkey’s control in 2016 as a result of the Operation Euphrates Shield.

While Ankara has repeatedly stated that its operations in Syria only targeted the Islamic State group and US-backed Kurdish militants, which the Turkish government considers to be terrorists, Damascus stressed that the Turkish Army had never asked permission to act on Syrian territory.