Turkey’s ex-Soviet ally Azerbaijan on Monday said it has launched a criminal investigation into the supporters of US-based Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for last month’s abortive coup.
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Erdogan, who has come under fire over the massive post-coup crackdown and human rights in Turkey, said his country was facing a battle against both the PKK and the Gulen movement. US officials say they need to see clear evidence of the cleric’s involvement. “I have asked him again after the latest events”, Erdogan said in Ankara. Gulen has denied that charge and condemned the coup attempt.
The Anadolu news agency described as the biggest search and raid operation since the failed July 15 military-backed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Around 100 people were detained.
Authorities have blamed the attacks on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
Turkish police have launched simultaneous raids in 18 cities against companies linked to USA -based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen as authorities pressed ahead with a clampdown on his movement.
A reclusive cleric, 75-year-old Gulen has been accused by Ankara of masterminding last month’s attempted coup.
In dawn raids on Thursday, police from a financial-crimes unit entered some 200 homes and workplaces after a chief prosecutor issued 187 arrest warrants, state-run Anadolu news agency said.
The ministry said Thursday it received the request Wednesday and forwarded it to Greece’s justice ministry the same day.
And on Wednesday night, two policemen and a civilian were killed and dozens wounded in another auto bombing in Van, which has a mixed ethnic Kurd and Turkish population.
Footage on the CNN Turk channel showed offices inside the police station in ruins and filled with smoke after the bomb exploded just outside the complex at 9:20 a.m. (0620 GMT), when officers had already begun arriving for work.
Early Thursday, another vehicle bombing hit police headquarters in the eastern Turkish city of Elazig. The blast killed three soldiers and a member of a village guard militia and wounded another seven soldiers, they said.
Turkish officials and state-run media say two auto bombings targeting police stations in eastern Turkey have killed at least six people and wounded over 120.
Turkey witnessed on Wednesday and Thursday a series of bombings that targeted security sites, east of the country, killing nine security men and a civilian man, and injuring 226 others.
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Authorities blamed that attack on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has launched a campaign of auto bombings targeting police stations or roadside bomb attacks on police vehicles.
