2 held in Turkey as police foil New Year bomb plot
Print Edition
TURKISH police yesterday detained two Islamic State suspects accused of plotting a suicide bomb attack during New Year’s Eve celebrations in the capital, Ankara.
The arrests come with European countries on high alert for possible attacks over the New Year, with Belgium detaining two suspected Islamists and Moscow closing off its iconic Red Square.
Turkish officials said the pair were planning to strike an area in the center of the city expected to be packed with revelers tonight.
Turkey has been on high security alert since October 10 when two suicide bombers attacked a crowd of peace activists in Ankara, killing 103 people.
According to NTV television, counter-terrorism police arrested the pair in the Mamak district on the outskirts of the capital.
The two were planning to stage an attack in Ankara’s main Kizilay Square, the Anatolia news agency reported.
The two men, identified only as MC and AY, had already carried out surveillance on potential targets, according to the Ankara governor’s office.
They had planned to strike two separate spots in Kizilay — one outside a big shopping mall and the second in a street packed with pubs.
Police also confiscated one suicide bomb vest, one bomb mechanism with ball bearings and one rucksack with bomb-making materials, the governor’s office said.
The October attack has been blamed on IS jihadists, like two other deadly strikes in the Kurdish-dominated southeast earlier in the summer.
In June, four people were killed in an attack on a rally of the main pro-Kurdish party in Diyarbakir while in July, 33 people were killed in a suicide bombing against activists in the city of Suruc on the Syrian border.
Turkish authorities have over the past few months cracked down on IS’s so-called “sleeper cells” throughout the country.
Earlier this month, police arrested an alleged IS member suspected of planning a suicide attack on the US consulate in Istanbul. The Syrian national was detained at a bus station in the southern city of Kahramanmaras.
Long criticized by its allies for taking too soft a line against jihadists, Turkey is taking firmer action against the IS group on the border with Syria after being shaken by attacks on its soil and the Paris assaults in November.
It has vehemently rejected accusations of failing to properly police the 911-kilometer border, saying its sheer length makes it impossible to block off entirely.
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