Posted on 04/01/2008 8:27:51 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
ISTANBUL: Turkish anti-terror police on Tuesday detained 45 people on suspicion of belonging to the Al-Qaida extremist network and planning attacks, Anatolia news agency reported.
The suspects, rounded up in simultaneous operations in eight districts of Istanbul, were being questioned by police, the report said.
A court was to decide later whether they should be charged and jailed pending trial or released.
In January, police raided 18 locations in southeast Turkey on intelligence that a local Al-Qaida cell was planning car bomb attacks. Four alleged militants and a policeman were then killed in a gunfight, and 17 suspects arrested.
A Turkish cell of the extremist network was blamed for truck bombs that targeted two synagogues in Istanbul on November 15, 2003, and the British consulate and a British bank five days later. The attacks killed 63 people, injured hundreds and caused huge material damage.
Last year, seven men were jailed for life over the bombings, one of them a Syrian national who masterminded and financed the attacks.
Hopeful signs coming out of Turkey recently. The generals are also seemingly thinking about giving the boot to the Islamists who are running the parliament (and recently passed that law allowing burkas in the schools).
If so, it marks the first notable change of course since Turkey blocked us from crossing their territory in the runup to the Iraq invasion.
Gonna give those boys a ride on the Midnight Express, amd make em wish they were waterboarded.
Al-Qaida will have to be exterminated like the cockroaches that try to hide when you turn on the kitchen lights.
Bet they question with more than waterboarding.
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