Türkiye's MIT held ISKP operative picked up near Pakistan-Afghan border

Türkiye's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has captured a man it describes as a key Islamic State Khorasan Province operative in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region and moved him to Türkiye, Minute Mirror reported on Friday, linking the arrest to intelligence cooperation between MIT and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.

The outlet named the man as Uğur Bahadır, alias Abdullah. It did not say when he was detained or at which point on the border. The account rests on unnamed security sources and could not be independently confirmed.

According to those sources, Bahadır travelled from Türkiye to the border region in 2024 to join ISKP training camps. Turkish authorities held and questioned him, and the report said the interrogation produced details of the group's operational structure, its recruitment work and plans for attacks inside Türkiye. The same information, it said, helped expose networks that recruit young Turkish nationals.

Minute Mirror placed the arrest within a series of operations against a recruitment and facilitation network working between Türkiye and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Özgür Altun, alias Abu Yasir al-Turki, was reportedly detained in June 2025 in a joint MIT-ISI operation near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and was accused of coordinating the movement of recruits out of Türkiye.

After Altun's arrest, Ahmet Kazancı, also known as Abu Ubeyde, reportedly took over ISKP's Turkish-language propaganda and was captured in the border region in early 2026. Security sources told the outlet that Kazancı had survived airstrikes in Pakistan and was trying to get back to Türkiye. Mehmet Gören, described as having been given suicide attack duties, was arrested by MIT in December 2025 in the same region and was also linked to Altun's network.

The report said Bahadır's questioning yielded information on recruits moving through Iran into training facilities in the border area and on planning for attacks outside the group's usual territory. Turkish media reports cited by the outlet said the investigation had exposed recruitment, financing and propaganda networks run from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

Security sources quoted by Minute Mirror also said militant groups had tried to establish hideouts in remote parts of Balochistan, including the Mastung, Kalat, Khuzdar, Bolan and Sibi belt, and that Pakistani agencies were running intelligence-led operations against them alongside foreign partners.

The report named no officials who provided the accounts, and it cited no statement from the Pakistani or Turkish governments on Bahadır's arrest.