ANKARA, Turkey - Police raided two suspected safe houses of alleged al-Qaida militants overnight in southern Turkey, triggering a gunbattle that killed one policeman and four gunmen, a provincial governor said Thursday.
Five police officers and a passer-by were also wounded during the clash that lasted more than 12 hours in the southern city of Gaziantep. Provincial Governor Suleyman Kamci said 19 suspects were detained. Police seized explosives and guns at the houses, Kamci said.
Excerpted
http://www.pr-inside.com/clash-between-police-and-suspected-al-qaida-r403200.htm
Turkey: Police target nationalist gangs after failed coup attempt
24 Jan. 2008
Istanbul - Turkish police have arrested dozens of people, including former army officers, lawyers, journalists and religious leaders, allegedly involved in a planned coup d'etat against the government.
According to Turkish media reports, the suspects come from a nationalist organisation called Ergenekon and are alleged to have planned political murders and bomb attacks in a bid to replace the government in 2009. Thirty-three suspects linked to the Ergenekon operation, including retired general Veli Kucuk, were arrested on Tuesday. Controversial nationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz, who filed lawsuits against Turkish writers and intellectuals, was also detained in the police swoop.
Excerpted
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1806161685
The Port of Astoria remained on heightened alert this morning, although authorities have decided the threat that triggered the alarm poses little danger. And in response, the U.S. Coast Guard is ramping up vessel security operations this week.
Interim Astoria Police Chief Alan Oja said representatives of law enforcement, the Port and the U.S. Coast Guard met Tuesday to discuss the threat: a message left on a Port office answering machine that was reported Monday morning. "We talked about it, and while this threat is not terribly credible, you still just don't ignore things like that," Oja said.
At this point, authorities have decided the call did not originate in Astoria. Oja said the message was left by a man and included some mention of a barge or boat, but the warning was more along the lines of "hopefully you guys are smart enough to figure things out." It didn't threaten a specific target, and it didn't set a time or a location. "There wasn't a whole lot of substance to the call," he said, calling it "very nonspecific." Even so, community members may have noticed an increased presence of Coast Guard boats on the Columbia River, visibility that will likely increase.
"We cannot afford to take any discovery, however minor, about this stuff and not consider it seriously," said Capt. Peter Troedsson, commander of Coast Guard Group Astoria. "We take the actions we think are appropriate and try to keep our awareness up." Those actions include a "surge" in vessel security operations in the Port area, said Lt. j.g. Adam Davenport, a pilot at Air Station Astoria and public affairs officer for the Group.
Random law enforcement boardings - when Coast Guard crews board vessels to check for compliance with various laws and regulations - are part of normal operations. But the number of boardings will climb as Cape Disappointment and Astoria crews are joined by personnel from Portland, San Francisco and New York, along with specially trained teams from the Coast Guard's Deployable Operations Group. "To increase the presence on the river, we need more people to do that," Davenport said. "The low-credibility threat is not raising our maritime security condition. But due to the threatening phone message, we're using it as an excuse to train." The additional enforcement teams are scheduled to stay through the weekend, he said.
http://www.dailyastorian.com/Main.asp?SectionID=2&ArticleID=48542