Turkish police detained six suspected Daesh militants planning to attack a protest march led by the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party on Wednesday, according to Kayseri’s Governor Suleyman Kamci.
Turkey’s main opposition CHP party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu began a 425-kilometre protest march from Ankara to Istanbul after a lawmaker from his party was jailed on spying charges.
“Following a nice tip-off, our police detained a group of six Daesh militants. They were planning to attack the convoy with a minibus,” Kamci said.
“They put Justice and Development (AK) Party banners on the van. A provocation was prevented.”
There were no further details on how the suspects planned to carry out the attack.
Kamci said the suspects rented a black van in Kayseri on Tuesday. Four of them were detained by a special operations unit in Kayseri and two others were detained in Kocaeli province, through which the protesters were marching on Wednesday.
More detentions on anti-Daesh operations
Turkish police detained 37 Daesh suspects in anti-terror operations in provinces across Turkey, media said on Wednesday.
Officials said a Syrian citizen was arrested in Hatay for carrying more than five kg of TNT and nine detonators at the border with Syria after trying to illegally cross into Turkey.
Police detained 25 people in simultaneous raids in nine provinces, including Istanbul, overnight, targeting Daesh and Jabhat Fateh al Sham suspects who had been on a security watch list for the past four months.
In a separate set of operations, police detained 12 individuals, in southern Adana province with suspected links to Daesh overnight.
One of them was a 14-year-old Indonesian girl.
Turkey has detained more than 5,000 Daesh suspects in recent years and deported some 3,290 foreign militants from 95 different countries, according to Turkish officials.
It has also refused entry to at least 38,269 individuals.
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