As New Year’s Eve approaches, Turkish counterterrorism units have intensified their hunt for suspected jihadis in a bid to pre-empt carnage like that unleashed by an Islamic State (IS) shooter at an Istanbul nightclub during holiday reveling last year.

Police detained a total of 120 individuals, including Syrian and Iraqi citizens, suspected of links to IS. The sweeps stretched from Istanbul and as far east as Van on the Iranian border, where 22 people were detained and materials purportedly exposing their ties to the jihadis were seized, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

Last year, 39 people, many of them Arab tourists, died when a lone gunman rained bullets on them at the elite Reina nightclub on the Bosporus. The trial of a total of 57 suspects, including the confessed assassin, Uzbek-born Abdulkadir Masharipov, began on Dec. 11 and adjourned on Dec. 16. It's set to resume March 26.

Istanbul Gov. Vasip Sahin assured citizens that this time around, all necessary measures had been taken “for our citizens to spend New Year’s Eve in the best way possible.” He said 37,000 police officers and 4,000 gendarmerie personnel would be deployed across the megalopolis to ensure that celebrations were peaceful. They may also be somewhat less joyful, as authorities banned celebrations in the city’s central plaza Taksim, where oft-inebriated revelers traditionally congregate to ring in the New Year.