Turkish police launched a nationwide crackdown on suspected militants linked to the al-Qaeda terror network, rounding up 120 people in simultaneous pre-dawn raids, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
It was not clear if Friday’s raids in 16 provinces in this NATO member and Western ally country would amount to a major blow to homegrown Islamic militants.
Yeni Safak newspaper this week reported that Turkish police had recently seized video recordings of alleged Turkish al-Qaeda militants in Taliban camps in Afghanistan, as well as alleged plans for attacks on Turkish soldiers in Kabul and on police in Turkey. It did not cite a source for the report.
Turkey, NATO’s sole Muslim member, took over the rotating command of the NATO peacekeeping operation in Kabul in November and doubled its number of troops to around 1,750. Turkey has also said it is ready to serve as an exit route for US troops’ withdrawal from Iraq.
Friday’s crackdown follows another raid on suspected militants in the cities of Ankara and Adana last week in which police rounded up and interrogated some 40 people and reportedly seized documents detailing al-Qaeda activities. Twenty-five of them were charged with membership in a terrorist organization while the rest were released.
Those detained in Friday’s raids include a faculty member of the Yuzunci Yil University in the eastern city of Van, who is suspected of recruiting students at the campus and other people through the Internet and of sending them to Afghanistan for training, Anatolia reported, citing unnamed police officials. The suspect was only identified by his initials, M.E.Y.
Anatolia said other suspects included some local leaders, university students and people believed to be spreading al-Qaeda propaganda.
Police seized documents, computer hard disks and a number of arms, it said.
Police would not comment on the arrests on Friday, but experts said more operations against al-Qaeda suspects were likely to follow.
“Each operation against al-Qaeda leads to new information and widens the net,” said Nihat Ali Ozcan, a terrorism expert at the Economic Policy Research Institute in Ankara.
Homegrown Islamic militants tied to the al-Qaeda carried out suicide bombings in Istanbul, killing 58 people in 2003. The targets were the British consulate, a British bank and two synagogues. In 2008, an attack blamed on al-Qaeda-affiliated militants outside the US consulate in Istanbul left three assailants and three policemen dead.
Turkish authorities have said dozens of Islamic militants have received training in Afghanistan.
However, al-Qaeda’s austere and violent interpretation of Islam receives little public backing in Turkey.
Several other radical Islamic groups are active in Turkey, a predominantly Muslim but officially secular country.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not