Lankan Ranger
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2009
- Messages
- 12,550
- Reaction score
- 0
Turkey detains 40 Al-Qaeda & Hizbullah suspects in raids
Turkish police detained 40 suspected members of al-Qaeda and the Turkish Islamist militant group Hizbullah in raids in İstanbul on Tuesday.
Police raided 30 locations in five provinces nationwide as part of an anti-Hizbullah operation. Among the detainees was Halis Bayancuk, who allegedly become the head of al-Qaedas branch in Turkey after leaving Hizbullah along with other militants from the organization three years ago.
Militants from al-Qaeda were behind bomb attacks in Istanbul in 2003. In separate attacks on the HSBC headquarters, two synagogues and the British Consulate in İstanbul, 57 people, including the then-British Consul-General Roger Short, were killed while 700 others were injured by the explosions.
Bayancuks father, Hacı Bayancuk, allegedly is the mastermind behind the murder of Diyarbakır Police Chief Ali Gaffar Okkan, who was killed on Jan. 24, 2001 along with five police officers.
Halis Bayancuk, 26, studied at Egypts Al-Azhar University and speaks Arabic fluently. He was detained in 2008 with prosecutors demanding an sentence of 15 to 22.5 years imprisonment for leading a terrorist organization, but was released in 2009. He is known to have threatened the police officers who detained him.
Hizbullah emerged in the late 1980s during fighting between Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorists and Turkish troops. It was broken up and its leaders were arrested in 2000 after police unearthed the bodies of more than 60 people the group had tortured and killed, in raids across the country. Turkish Hizbullah has no links to the Lebanese Shiite group, Hezbullah.
After a series of delays in their trials, 18 Hizbullah members were released in January this year after the introduction of new regulations limiting the period an accused person could be imprisoned without conviction. It was not clear if any of those freed were among those detained on Tuesday.
Turkey detains 40 al-Qaeda, Hizbullah suspects in raids
Turkish police detained 40 suspected members of al-Qaeda and the Turkish Islamist militant group Hizbullah in raids in İstanbul on Tuesday.
Police raided 30 locations in five provinces nationwide as part of an anti-Hizbullah operation. Among the detainees was Halis Bayancuk, who allegedly become the head of al-Qaedas branch in Turkey after leaving Hizbullah along with other militants from the organization three years ago.
Militants from al-Qaeda were behind bomb attacks in Istanbul in 2003. In separate attacks on the HSBC headquarters, two synagogues and the British Consulate in İstanbul, 57 people, including the then-British Consul-General Roger Short, were killed while 700 others were injured by the explosions.
Bayancuks father, Hacı Bayancuk, allegedly is the mastermind behind the murder of Diyarbakır Police Chief Ali Gaffar Okkan, who was killed on Jan. 24, 2001 along with five police officers.
Halis Bayancuk, 26, studied at Egypts Al-Azhar University and speaks Arabic fluently. He was detained in 2008 with prosecutors demanding an sentence of 15 to 22.5 years imprisonment for leading a terrorist organization, but was released in 2009. He is known to have threatened the police officers who detained him.
Hizbullah emerged in the late 1980s during fighting between Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorists and Turkish troops. It was broken up and its leaders were arrested in 2000 after police unearthed the bodies of more than 60 people the group had tortured and killed, in raids across the country. Turkish Hizbullah has no links to the Lebanese Shiite group, Hezbullah.
After a series of delays in their trials, 18 Hizbullah members were released in January this year after the introduction of new regulations limiting the period an accused person could be imprisoned without conviction. It was not clear if any of those freed were among those detained on Tuesday.
Turkey detains 40 al-Qaeda, Hizbullah suspects in raids
