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Turkey arrests ISIL suspects as detention drive continues

Turkey arrests ISIL suspects as detention drive continues

The suspects were allegedly planning to carry out attacks on synagogues and churches. Turkey has announced it has detained dozens of people suspected of having ties to the ISIL (ISIS) armed group. At least 29 suspects were arrested in “Operation Heroes-37” on Friday, news agencies reported. The detentions come amid a drive by Turkey’s security forces ahead of New Year festivities, although some also view it as part of a political push ahead of local elections. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on social media platform X that the detentions had thwarted planned attacks on churches and synagogues in Istanbul. DEAŞ Terör Örgütüne yönelik İstanbul merkezli 9️⃣ ilde düzenlenen “KAHRAMANLAR-37” Operasyonunda 2️⃣9️⃣ Şahıs Yakalandı❗️Terör Örgütleri ve onların İş Birlikçileriyle mücadelemiz kararlılıkla devam edecek❗️❌MİT Başkanlığı ile Emniyet Genel Müdürlüğü İstihbarat Başkanlığı ve… pic.twitter.com/xfu2gbrKT1 — Ali Yerlikaya (@AliYerlikaya) December 29, 2023 According to Turkish state news agency Anadolu, the suspects included three alleged senior ISIL fighters. It added that plans also included an attack on the Iraqi Embassy in Ankara. Despite the group having been largely defeated, some ISIL fighters remain in hiding in remote areas of Syria and Iraq, from which they continue to carry out attacks. Turkey continues to be targeted and has been hit by a string of deadly bombings. An attack in Istanbul on January 1, 2017 killed 39 people in a nightclub during New Year celebrations. [embedded content] The detentions come a week after police rounded up 304 suspected ISIL fighters in simultaneous raids across Turkey, in what is seen as a security sweep leading up to the New Year festivities. Turkish authorities have also ramped up operations against Kurdish fighters in recent weeks, after they detonated a bomb near government buildings in Ankara on October 1. “For the peace, unity and solidarity of our nation, we will not tolerate any terrorists,” Yerlikaya said on X. “We will continue our fight uninterruptedly with the superior efforts of our security forces.” However, there is also suspicion that the drive may also be influenced by upcoming local elections in March. Analysts say that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is keen to win back control of Istanbul, Ankara and other major economic hubs that his AK Party has lost. Adblock test (Why?)

‘Enormous mistake’: Business leaders, residents fed up with blue state drug laws issue 2024 ultimatum

‘Enormous mistake’: Business leaders, residents fed up with blue state drug laws issue 2024 ultimatum

A group of political and business leaders are urging Oregon’s legislators to reform the state’s permissive drug laws in the beginning of 2024. If lawmakers don’t act, that coalition will bring a ballot measure to the very voters who decriminalized drugs three years ago. “Oregonians still believe that the best strategy is a minimal use of criminal justice resources to encourage people into treatment and recovery,” former state legislator and onetime director of the Oregon Department of Corrections Max Williams said. “But they also realize the tools that we’ve currently given law enforcement … are not working.” PORTLAND WOMAN KNOCKED OUT BY ATTACKER BLAMES CITY FOR SLOW POLICE RESPONSE: ‘WE DID THIS TO OURSELVES’ Nearly 60% of Oregon voters passed Measure 110 in 2020, decriminalizing personal use amounts of all drugs and redirecting swaths of the state’s marijuana tax revenue to fund grants for addiction services. The rollout was beleaguered by bureaucratic flubs and a brief implementation timeline. It also coincided with the nationwide fentanyl crisis. More than 100,000 people across the country died from a drug overdose in 2022, a 45% increase since 2019, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Now, polls consistently show Oregonians souring against the unprecedented (and so far unrepeated) law. The Coalition to Fix and Improve Ballot Measure 110 has commissioned three this year, the most recent of which found 74% of respondents favored recriminalizing possession of fentanyl, heroin and meth and making treatment required, not voluntary, as an alternative to jail. A full 86% of respondents also said Oregon should immediately ban the use of hard drugs in public. “Oregon has turned into an international spectacle, and I think we looked at each other and realized that we made an enormous mistake,” Portland trial attorney Kristin Olson, who voted in favor of the ballot measure and describes herself as a lifelong liberal, previously told Fox News. So the coalition, backed by big names like Nike co-founder Phil Knight and Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle, has put forth a voter initiative they believe would put the state back on the right track. Their proposal doesn’t completely repeal the law. It still prioritizes diversion, treatment and recovery over prosecution and jail, but recriminalizes possession of small amounts of hard drugs and completely bans public drug use. It also aims to improve oversight of how tax dollars are spent and beef up penalties for drug dealing. WATCH MORE FOX NEWS DIGITAL ORIGINALS HERE When Measure 110 took effect, it made possession of small amounts of drugs punishable by just a $100 fine, which suspects could have waived if they completed a substance use assessment. But less than 1% of people ticketed have completed a treatment evaluation, according to Oregon Judicial Department data. “Writing somebody a ticket that is oftentimes less than what you would get for parking illegally in downtown Portland is not motivating people to seek treatment and recovery,” Williams told Fox News. “The data for that is overwhelming.” But supporters of Measure 110 say the 1% figure doesn’t capture the more than 7,000 people who received substance use treatment in the first quarter of 2023. A further 11,000 clients utilized peer support services and 14,000 accessed harm reduction supplies like clean needles, smoking kits and naloxone, according to state data.  Oregon has so far approved $264 million in grants for more than 200 service providers, according to the most recent audit from the Secretary of State’s office.  Measure 110 supporters worry a return to criminalization will be “harmful and ineffective.” “It re-stigmatizes people who need help. People are less likely to get help when they are stigmatized,” Tera Hurst, executive director of the Oregon Health Justice Recovery Alliance, a coalition of state and national groups that supported the law, told The Oregonian. STATE OF SQUATTING: AMERICA IS AT A ‘TURNING POINT,’ SAYS HANDYMAN WHO HELPS PEOPLE RECLAIM THEIR HOMES And although overdose deaths in the state increased nearly 75% from 2020 to 2022, researchers at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine wrote in a September paper that they found no evidence of an association between decriminalization and fatal overdose rates in Oregon. The same was said for Washington, where drugs were decriminalized for just over two months after the state Supreme Court threw out the previous drug possession law. Williams conceded that decriminalization did not create Oregon’s current overdose, crime and livability issues, but argues that it “exacerbated every one of these situations.” He said it’s telling that, three years later, Oregon is still the only state to have decriminalized drugs. “Nobody’s looked at Oregon and said, ‘Wow, this is a model of fabulous success,’” he said. “If anything, a state like our friends to the north in Washington, I think, quickly moved to reinstate criminal sanctions associated with possession of these hard drugs because they did not want to follow the pattern that Oregon had followed.” The Oregon legislature heard testimony on Measure 110 earlier this month ahead of its upcoming short session in February. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler urged lawmakers to criminalize public drug use, and downtown business owners blamed the law for turning the city into a “virtual drug supermarket.” If the legislature doesn’t take action, Williams said the coalition is prepared to run its proposal as a ballot measure. But they’d prefer not to wait for November. “There really are people that are dying as a result of this policy,” he said. Waiting “just delays the crisis that we’re in that much longer.”

Iowa GOP chair predicts ‘potential for a record turnout’ in 2024 caucuses as new voters ‘surge’

Iowa GOP chair predicts ‘potential for a record turnout’ in 2024 caucuses as new voters ‘surge’

The longtime chair of the Iowa GOP says there’s a chance for a “record turnout” when his state’s caucuses on January 15 lead off the Republican presidential nominating calendar. The Republican record was set eight years ago, when roughly 186,000 voters cast ballots in a wide-open GOP caucus that was narrowly won by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. “I think there is a potential for a record turnout. Certainly we’re going to be well above 100,000,” Iowa Republican Party chair Jeff Kaufmann emphasized in a recent Fox News Digital interview. Kaufmann pointed to what he characterized as a surge in new voters showing up at Republican presidential campaign events across the Hawkeye State. RAISING THE STAKES: ARE TRUMP’S EXPECTATIONS TOO HIGH IN IOWA’S JAN. 15 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CAUCUSES? “You come to these events, regardless of the candidate, and you ask how many people are going to caucus for the very first time. I’m seeing a fourth, a third of the people raising their hand,” Kaufmann said. “That’s the unknown factor that makes it harder to predict, but it makes it wonderful as a party chair to know that we’re going to have even more registered Republicans.” The caucus, unlike most primary elections, is run by the state party. And Kaufmann, with the clock ticking toward caucus day, shared his concerns. WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLING IN IOWA SHOWS  “We’ve got 1,657 precincts. Almost 10,000 volunteers. Anything can go wrong, but the key is making sure you have stopgaps, you have double checks, you have everything that you need in order to make sure that a process that big, that reliant on volunteer help, everything goes well. So I don’t sleep for the next four weeks,” he said as he spoke with Fox News six days before Christmas at a rally headlined by former President Donald Trump. But he added: “we feel good with where we’re at. We’re doing caucus trainings by the hundreds.” Trump remains the commanding front-runner in the Iowa GOP presidential caucus, with his support at 50% or more in the latest surveys. A FOX Business poll indicated Trump at 52%, far ahead of two closes rivals — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 18% and former ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley at 16%. The Trump campaign’s ground game operation in Iowa is leagues ahead of his 2016 effort, when he narrowly lost the caucuses to Cruz.  “Ted Cruz won in 2016 because his ground game was fantastic,” Kaufmann, who remains neutral in the Republican nomination race, told Fox News. AS FRONT-RUNNER TRUMP RETURNS TO IOWA, RIVALS HALEY AND DESANTIS TURN UP THE VOLUME — ON EACH OTHER And pointing to the 2024 Trump campaign, Kaufmann emphasized that “their ground game has increased immensely.” After losing to Cruz eight years ago, Trump, in an unproven claim, charged that “Cruz didn’t win Iowa. He stole it.” It was a taste of things to come, as Trump has repeatedly charged without providing concrete evidence that his 2020 general election loss to President Biden was “rigged” with “massive voter fraud.” But Kaufmann said he’s not concerned about Trump claiming that the 2024 caucuses will be “rigged” if the former president doesn’t live up to expectations. “We have such a transparent process. We count the ballots in the actual room. We report the ballots in the actual room,” he emphasized. And Kaufmann added that “the conversations I’ve had with the Trump campaign have not revolved at all around any kind of rigged elections or anything of that nature. . . . We’ve got some great ground games right now in this state. And Donald Trump has one of those great ground games. And so that’s what wins an Iowa caucus.” Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

What is ‘swatting,’ the ‘criminal harassment’ hoax that’s hit 3 GOP lawmakers since Christmas?

What is ‘swatting,’ the ‘criminal harassment’ hoax that’s hit 3 GOP lawmakers since Christmas?

Three Republican lawmakers have been the target of “swatting” at their homes since Christmas Day, with a legal expert calling the act “criminal harassment.” “Swatting” is a crime that has become prominent in recent years, gaining more steam in the social media age when people’s addresses are easily accessible. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital that swatting is a crime that could be “charged as a form of criminal threats.” MTG TO INTRODUCE BILL TARGETING ‘SWATTERS’ AS RICK SCOTT BECOMES LATEST TARGET “Swatting constitutes a false police report that can be criminally charged,” Turley said. “Virginia recently passed a new law making swatting specifically a criminal misdemeanor. It can also be charged as a form of criminal threats.” “This is a crime that flourishes because there is insufficient deterrent,” Turley continued. “The anonymity and rare prosecutions combine to fuel this form of criminal harassment.” “There is no mystery to how to address these crimes. There must be greater detection and penalties to achieve deterrence,” he added. The crime targets an individual by calling in a false police report for a violent crime — such as a murder, a hostage situation or other crimes that would require a greater law enforcement response — to the home of the target. The goal of the false police report is to elicit a SWAT team response by the police to the target’s home. Consequently, swatting draws police resources away from real crimes while the state becomes the unwitting arm to terrorize a person at their own home. Now, national leaders are being targeted by swatters who have sent the police to their homes. Since Christmas, three Republican lawmakers — Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and Reps. Brandon Williams of New York and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — have been victims of swatting at their homes. Scott became the latest victim, announcing on Thursday that his home was swatted the night before while he and his wife were out to dinner. “Last night, while at dinner with my wife, cowards ‘swatted’ my home in Naples. These criminals wasted the time & resources of our law enforcement in a sick attempt to terrorize my family,” Scott wrote on X. Both Williams and Greene announced on social media that their homes had been hit on Christmas Day. Williams told Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany that there was “no question” the swatting incident against him was an intimidation tactic over his pro-Israel stance. Greene announced Wednesday that she would introduce a bill to target swatters after her family member’s house was also hit this week. Fox News Digital’s Ellizabeth Elkind contributed reporting.