Turkish police, courts target al-Qaeda cells

08/04/2008

In a second major operation this year, police detained a group of al-Qaeda suspects last week. On Saturday, a Turkish court indicted 24 of them.

By Ayhan Simsek for Southeast European Times -- 08/04/08

Turkish police arrested a group of al-Qaeda suspects. [Getty Images]

A Turkish court on Saturday (April 5th) indicted 24 suspected al-Qaeda members of charges of planning bombings and belonging to a terrorist organisation. They are accused of plotting to stage attacks in Istanbul if Turkey decided to send more troops to the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan.

The suspects were part of a group of 35 people detained by police on April 1st in their second major operation of the year against al-Qaeda, which is reportedly planning suicide attacks inside Turkey.

According to police, the detainees re-organised the Istanbul cell four years after the November 2003 bombings that killed 63 people.

The suspects were linked to an al-Qaeda network in southeastern Turkey that was disrupted by a major operation in January. A police officer and four of the suspected militants were killed in the 13-hour shootout on January 24th.

The recent police raids in Istanbul and the provinces of Hatay, Konya, and Gaziantep have provided significant insights into Turkish al-Qaeda. "These suspects are members of terrorist organisations that exploit the religion," Istanbul police say. Leaders were trained at military camps in "so-called jihad regions" and then returned to Turkey to carry out terrorist acts with their organisation's instructions and financial support.

The statement deliberately omitted the terms Islamic or Islamist terror. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan categorically rejects those terms on the grounds that no religion permits terrorism and that it would be ugly to put the word Islam before terrorism.

The recent operation revealed that the new al-Qaeda cell was organised around two small mosques and established its own schools rather than sending members' children to public schools.

The Istanbul cell also rejected Turkey's legal system and established its own Islamic legal system.

During the police raids, various documents and CDs containing information on military training were seized. Istanbul police say the suspects were preparing to conduct acts of terror in co-operation with other radical groups in Turkey.

On Friday, Pakistani security forces arrested four people with suspected links to al-Qaeda, according to Reuters. All four were Turkish, and three were carrying Turkish passports.