"Turkish Police Target al-Qaeda Network in Turkey
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 80
April 27, 2009 04:00 PM Age: 5 hrs
Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Home Page, Terrorism, Turkey
By: Emrullah Uslu
The counterterrorism units of the Gaziantep, Konya, Adana, Kahramanmaras and Sanliurfa provincial police departments staged simultaneous raids on a number of addresses in their respective cities. As a result 37 suspected al-Qaeda members were detained. It was reported that one of the suspects in Gaziantep was appointed as the leader of al-Qaeda in Turkey after Mehemet Polat was killed in a shootout in Gaziantep province on January 24 2008 (Star, April 21). Another suspect in Gaziantep was found to have spent time in al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, along with six other detainees. They were allegedly forming a new organization affiliated with al-Qaeda (Today's Zaman, April 25). It was the second such police raid carried out during April. On April 9 police in Eskisehir province arrested 28 suspected al-Qaeda members, seven of whom were imprisoned (www.ntvmsnbc.com, April 11)."
More:Turkish Police Target al-Qaeda Network in Turkey - The Jamestown Foundation