Dual-national IS suspect shot dead after firing on Turkish police
A 20-year-old Austrian-Turkish dual citizen was shot dead by police in Istanbul last Thursday after opening fire on officers during an anti–Islamic State (IS) operation, Austria’s Interior Ministry said Tuesday. The man died in a shootout at a bus terminal in the Turkish metropolis, where security forces were trying to arrest him over suspected links to IS and plans for an attack in Turkey. According to the ministry, he fired first at policewomen and policemen; officers returned fire and killed him, as reported by derStandard.
In Austria, the man had been under investigation since 2025 for intending to travel abroad to join IS, with intelligence services noting a planned trip to Egypt before his first arrest in May 2025. He spent months in pretrial detention, was released under conditions, and was arrested again in March 2026 after authorities found he was still interested in buying weapons despite a weapons ban. In late May 2026, a Vienna court convicted him of membership in a criminal and terrorist organization and violations of weapons laws, sentencing him to a mix of suspended and unsuspended prison time; with time served credited, he was released the same day. As part of his sentence, he had to report regularly to authorities and take part in a deradicalization program run by the association Derad, which he had attended since November 2025.
In July 2026, he left Austria illegally for Turkey, where he was detained again following close cooperation between Turkish and Austrian security services, then released under conditions by Turkish authorities. Days later, during the IS-related police operation in Istanbul, the shootout occurred. At the time of his death, Austrian authorities were pursuing a procedure to revoke his Austrian citizenship; an additional arrest warrant had also been issued after his departure for Turkey. The case has drawn attention because the man had passed through Austria’s deradicalization system yet still traveled abroad and ended up in a deadly confrontation with police.
