Dutch authorities rounded up 38 suspected members of a Kurdish rebel group in nationwide raids Friday, including "trainees" allegedly being prepared at a rural campground for terrorist attacks in Turkey, officials said Friday.
Authorities said the detainees are members of the former Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK, which seeks to carve out an independent Kurdish state in the mountains of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
The group, which recently renamed itself KONGRA-GEL, has been branded a terrorist organization by the European Union.
"In the investigation it emerged that at the campground more than 20 people received training for armed fighting for the PKK in Turkey, among other means by committing terrorist attacks," a statement by prosecutors said. "Trainees were taught special war tactics."
There were also indications that "a number of the trainees were destined for Armenia," it said.
More than 200 police were involved in the second major operation in the Netherlands in a week, after special forces used tear gas Wednesday to end a standoff with alleged Islamic radicals in The Hague. Prosecutors said the two operations were not related.
Prosecution spokesman Wim de Bruin said the suspected Kurdish rebels had been under observation for several months and that "the course was nearly finished."
"We wanted to prevent the group from leaving the country and putting to use the knowledge they had gained," he said.
In Friday's raid of the alleged paramilitary training camp in the far south of the Netherlands, police seized night vision goggles, packages of clothing intended to be sent abroad, instruction materials, fake passports and identity cards. Twenty-nine suspects were arrested.
"Apparently there's been a training center there for a long time, and that's why it was decided to step in," Jan van Homelen, mayor of the nearby town of Boxtel said on national television.
Nine others were arrested in separate raids in The Hague, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, and the town of Capelle aan den Ijssel.
The rebels ended a five-year unilateral cease-fire in June and have carried out a number of attacks recently, most in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast.
The group has been on the EU's list of terrorist organizations since April, and Dutch prosecutors said those arrested Friday will likely be charged as members.
Other detainees allegedly arranged money transfers, passports to PKK members in Turkey and Armenia, and aided communication between rebel fighters, prosecutors said.
The suspects, whose names were not released, were 33 men and five women.
Van Homelen said the suspects did not appear to have used weapons or explosives in their training, which he described as "more theoretical."
Prosecutors said the suspects said they were Kurdish but they were all considered Turkish nationals by the Dutch state.
No names were released.
On Monday, The Hague's district court blocked the extradition of alleged PKK leader Nuriye Kesbir to Turkey for her suspected role in a series of bombings in the 1990s. The Justice Ministry said it would appeal the decision.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS