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| Europe |
| Turkish Police Detain |
| 2004-05-03 |
| Turkish police have detained 16 suspected Islamic militants believed to have been planning a bomb attack during a NATO summit in Istanbul in June, which President Bush is expected to attend, police said Monday. Police detained the 16 in an operation in the northwestern province of Bursa, a police statement said. It said the suspects were members of the Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to the al Qaida terrorist network, but gave no further details. The NATO summit will mark the formal entry into the alliance of Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Slovakia. Followup, from Beebs... At least 24 militants planning to bomb next month's Nato summit in Istanbul have been arrested, Turkish police say. The suspects - held in Bursa and Istanbul - were members of the radical Islamic group Ansar al-Islam. Guns, explosives, bomb-making booklets and 4,000 CDs with training advice from Osama Bin Laden were also seized. Sixteen of the suspected militants were arrested in Bursa, a city about 250 kilometres south of Istanbul. The rest were held in Istanbul. "The organisation has been neutralised in a successful operation while in the stage of planning attacks," Bursa governor Oguz Kagan Koksal was quoted as saying by Turkey's Anatolia news agency. US President George W Bush and other world leaders are due at the summit being held on 27 and 28 June. With up to 50 world leaders scheduled to attend, Turkey is under pressure to ensure security is water-tight for the Nato summit. Fears of attacks have been heightened since the four suicide bombings in Istanbul last November. Sixty-two people were killed and hundreds injured when two synagogues, the British consulate and HSBC bank were targeted in Turkey's largest city. |
| Posted by:Fred |