An eight-hour gunfight erupted in the city of Yalova when Turkish security forces raided a safe house used by operatives from Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), a branch of the Islamic State network.

Three police officers were killed in the operation, while eight others and a security guard were wounded, some critically. Turkey’s Interior Ministry said the raid followed concrete intelligence indicating the cell was planning large-scale attacks on New Year’s Eve celebrations across the country. In response to the heightened threat, Germany’s Foreign Office tightened its travel warnings for Turkey, urging increased caution.

What stunned the Turkish public was not only the severity of the clash, but the identity of the suspects. All six militants killed were Turkish citizens, not foreign fighters. This contradicted a long-standing assumption in Turkey that extremist groups primarily used the country as a transit route for operations in Central Asia or the Middle East, rather than as a base for local recruitment.