Turkey Deports 'some' IS Suspects Detained in Istanbul

Turkey has deported some of the eight suspected members of the Islamic State group who were detained in Istanbul this week, but others are still in custody, a government official said on Thursday.

Counter-terror police detained the suspects at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport after they flew in from the Moroccan city of Casablanca on Tuesday.

Local media said they were planning to sneak into Europe under the guise of being refugees.

"The individuals were detained in accordance with the assessment of on-site profilers, who flagged the Moroccan nationals as terror suspects," the official told Agence France Presse. 

"While some of the detainees have been deported, others remain in custody pending their interrogation," said the official, who did not give figures.

The Turkish authorities have profiling teams in place at airports and other transport hubs to immediately assess the threat posed by suspect travellers.

Local media had reported that Turkish police found a hand-written note on one of the suspects detailing a migration route from Istanbul to Germany via Greece.

The Turkish official was not immediately able to confirm the authenticity of the note or if the suspects were attempting to enter Europe as refugees.

The official said the identification of the suspects however "attests to the fact that the most effective means to fight terrorism is for source countries to share intelligence with Syria's neighbours".

The official added that based on intelligence provided by allies, Turkish authorities have imposed entry bans for 20,500 individuals "flagged as foreign terrorist fighters". 

Turkey is the main launching point for migrants fleeing to Europe, and currently hosts more than two million Syrian refugees.

The Paris attacks last week however raised security concerns over the migrant flow, after the discovery at the scene of a suicide bombing of a Syrian passport registered in the Greek island of Leros on October 3.

Turkey was long chided by its Western allies for not doing enough to halt the flow of IS militants across its 911-kilometre (560-mile) border with Syria but it has stepped up security after deadly attacks on Turkish soil blamed on IS jihadists.

On November 6, 41 Moroccan nationals were denied entry to Turkey after expert profilers at Ataturk Airport flagged them as "terror suspects." They were deported the same day. 

"The problem of instability in North Africa affects Turkey," another Turkish official told AFP, saying a "process of remilitarization" was encouraging radicals.