The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has for more than a decade maintained a clandestine cell network in Turkey’s northwestern province of Yalova, a quiet coastal area on the eastern shore of the Sea of Marmara better known for its thermal spas, seaside resorts and proximity to Istanbul.
Far from being an accidental security failure, the group’s long-term presence appears to have been sustained by a permissive environment shaped by Turkey’s intelligence services, which treated jihadist networks as manageable assets rather than existential threats and, at times, leveraged their violence to advance the political objectives of the Islamist ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), both domestically and in Turkey’s immediate neighborhood.
Islamic State’s long-term presence appears to have been sustained by a permissive environment shaped by Turkey’s intelligence services.
That calculation collapsed violently in December 2025, when a police operation against a known ISIS cell in Yalova spiraled into a deadly confrontation. Three police officers were killed along with six ISIS militants, exposing the limits of Ankara’s ability to “manage” radical groups it had long tolerated and in some cases shielded and sponsored. The episode underscored how jihadist operatives, emboldened by years of legal impunity and political protection, ultimately demanded more than the Turkish state, even under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist government, could or would deliver.
Although the ISIS safe house and the militants holed up inside had long been known to Turkish authorities, the government dispatched a local police unit at around 2 a.m. to execute a search warrant without adequate equipment. Officers reportedly lacked body armor, night-vision goggles and armored personnel carriers. Special forces, normally deployed in high-risk counterterrorism operations before regular police execute warrants, were not called in.
The decision suggests that authorities did not anticipate armed resistance and that intelligence assessments failed to warn of a likely deadly confrontation. When police arrived at the house, ISIS militants immediately opened fire, pinning officers down in exposed positions, killing three and wounding others. Forensic examinations later revealed traces of gunpowder on some of the wives of the slain ISIS militants, suggesting that women may also have taken part in the firefight.
Only after more than six hours of intense gunfire did the government deploy special forces and commando units.
Only after more than six hours of intense gunfire did the government deploy special forces and commando units to bring the situation under control. By the end of the operation four brothers from the same family — Musa Sordabak, Mehmet Cami Sordabak, Lütfi Sordabak and Haşem Sordabak — along with İbrahim Yaman and Zafer Umutlu, were dead.
The backgrounds of the deceased ISIS militants reveal how systematically they had been protected by Turkey’s criminal justice system. Zafer Umutlu had previously been indicted and tried on allegations of ISIS membership but was acquitted. In an irony bordering on the grotesque, court records show that on December 29, 2025, the very day Umutlu was killed in the Yalova operation, the province’s 2nd High Criminal Court attempted to serve him the written acquittal decision, noting that he had “left his address and could not be located.”
The involvement of the Sordabak family in ISIS activities had also long been known to Turkish authorities. An intelligence note circulated by the counterterrorism department on October 1, 2024, indicated that Umutlu and the Sordabak brothers were seeking to travel to the Afghanistan–Pakistan conflict zone to join the Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISIS-K). Their phone communications were put under surveillance, and a week later travel bans were issued for them.
Read the full article at Nordic Monitor.
Published originally on February 2, 2026 under the title: “Turkey’s longstanding tolerance of ISIS and state sponsorship raises fears of more bloodshed”
