Turkey millitary arrests hundreds of suspected Kurdish, IS militants

Turkey detained 251 people early Friday in coordinated raids against suspected Islamic State (IS) jihadists and Kurdish militants following a series of attacks on members of the public and police, the prime minister's office said.

"A total of 251 people were taken into detention for belonging to terrorist groups," the office of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced, adding that the raids took place in 13 provinces across Turkey.

The statement said that the arrests had been made in response to a series of violent attacks against members of the public and the armed forces in recent days.

The Dogan news agency said that an operation involving some 5,000 police raided 140 addresses in 26 districts of Istanbul in search of suspected members of the Islamic State group, Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and other militant factions.
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The operation also targeted suspected members of the PKK's youth wing, known as the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), and the Marxist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front, the state-run Anatolia agency said. The YDG-H claimed that it shot and killed an alleged former Islamic State fighter in Istanbul late on Tuesday.

The raids came days after 32 young activists were killed in a suicide bombing on Monday that Ankara blamed on the Islamic State group. Turkish and Kurdish youths had gathered at a cultural centre in the Turkish town of Suruc ahead of a planned trip to the town of Kobane to help with rebuilding.

Turkish authorities said Tuesday they had identified a suspect in the bombing with apparent links to the Islamic State group. In televised comments, Davutoglu said there was a "high probability" the attack was caused by a suicide bomber with connections to the jihadist group. "All the [suspect's] links internationally and domestically are being investigated," he added.

The bombing prompted more violence in Turkey's Kurd-dominated southeast, where many accuse the Turkish authorities of collaborating with the Islamic State group, accusations Ankara denies. Two police were shot dead near the Syrian border on Wednesday in an attack claimed by the PKK's military wing, which said the shooting was in revenge for the Suruc bombing.

Another policeman was killed on Thursday in the majority Kurdish city of Diyarbakir.

(BALOOGGSBLOG, FRANCE 24 with AFP)