Türkiye’s intelligence agency captured a man suspected of perpetrating a 2013 bomb attack in the southern Hatay province that killed 53 people, Turkish security sources said on Monday.
The sources said the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) captured, in Syria, Mohammed Dib Korali, one of the perpetrators of the twin car bombs that ripped through the border town of Reyhanli on May 11, 2013.
The MIT said Dib Korali was arrested in a cross-border operation into Syria and handed over to Hatay police.
He was suspected of planning the attack and providing the bombs.
In mid-December, Turkish law enforcement captured Cengiz Sertel, also one of the perpetrators of the deadly 2013 terrorist attack. Sertel was wanted under a red bulletin and the orange category on the Turkish Interior Ministry's list of those wanted for terrorism.
Sertel was found to have transferred the explosives used in the attack in the Reyhanli district of Hatay province from Syria to Türkiye, according to a written statement by the provincial governor's office.
On June 30, 2022, the mastermind of the Reyhanli attacks, Mehmet Gezer, was arrested after being extradited from the United States.
His arrest came after Yusuf Nazik confessed that Gezer played a key role in the bombing. US authorities delivered Gezer, a drug lord sought on a red notice with different 17 charges, to Turkish police upon their arrival at Istanbul Airport.
Türkiye continues its arrest campaign against suspects in the twin car bombs, which it says are linked to a group loyal to Syria’s then-President Bashar al-Assad.
In February 2018, a Turkish court sentenced nine suspects to life imprisonment and 13 other people to prison terms of 10 to 15 years for the bombings.
Reyhanli is located on the nearest point to Syria’s Aleppo province. It became a flashpoint after Ankara supported armed opposition factions against the Assad regime, which fell on December 8.
