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world NEWSThursday 31 December 2015
Turks, Belgians report foiling plans for holiday attacks
SUZAN FRASER Thursday in the city center
JOHN DAHLBURG
Associated Press are being canceled.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) —
With less than 48 hours left Last year, Mayeur told
in 2015, Turkey on Wednes-
day became the latest RTBF French-language
country to announce the
foiling of a holiday attack television, 100,000 people
plot, detaining two sus-
pected Islamic State mili- turned out, and in current
tants believed to be plan-
ning suicide bombings dur- circumstances, he said,
ing New Year celebrations
in the capital city’s heart. “we can’t guarantee that
“They were caught before
they had the opportunity we can check everyone.”
to take action,” said the of-
fice of the chief prosecutor On Thursday, the arrested
of Ankara, Turkey’s capital.
The men were detained men, whose names have
in a raid on a house in
the low-income Mamak not been made public, are
neighborhood, where po-
lice seized a suicide vest due to go before a mag-
armed with a bomb, a sec-
ond explosive device that istrate, who will decide
was fortified with ball bear-
ings and metal sticks and whether to hold them for
concealed inside a back
pack, as well as bomb- another month. An official
making equipment, ac-
cording to the prosecutor’s close to the investigation,
office.
The two men, Turkish na- speaking on condition of
tionals identified only by
their initials M.C. and A.Y., anonymity because the
were being questioned by
anti-terrorism police. The case is ongoing, told The
prosecutor’s office said the
Associated Press both sus-
pects belong to a motor-
An armed police man patrols at the Grand Place in Brussels on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2015. In cycle club, the Kamikaze
Belgium, an investigation was continuing into what authorities characterized as a “serious Riders, which is known
threat” of holiday season attacks directed at police, soldiers and popular attractions in the for illegal stunts on public
capital city of Brussels. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) roads.
men had staked out pos- In Belgium, an investigation training uniforms, comput- At least one other member
sible locations in Ankara was continuing into what er equipment and propa-
where they could carry out authorities characterized ganda materials from the of the Kamikaze Riders is
the attacks. as a “serious threat” of Islamic State. No weapons
The state-run Anadolu holiday season attacks di- or explosives were found. known to have been inves-
Agency, quoting unnamed rected at police, soldiers Brussels officials, however,
police and judiciary of- and popular attractions in were sufficiently worried tigated in the past for pos-
ficials, said the would-be the capital city of Brussels. about the remaining risks
bombers had intended to The arrest of two suspects that Mayor Yvane Mayeur sible links to Islamic radical-
blow themselves up during was announced Tuesday announced Wednesday
holiday festivities at bars by the Federal Prosecu- evening that a New Year’s ism, but his former lawyer
and a shopping mall in the tor’s Office, along with the Eve fireworks display and
central Kizilay district. seizure of military-style related festivities planned said Wednesday nothing
was ever proven.
Abdelouafi Eloussaki, a
founding member of the
Kamikaze Riders who died
in a motorcycle crash in
May 2013, had two young-
er brothers who were
Iraq tells Turkey to pull out of north, threatens action members of the radical
group Sharia4Belgium. The
group recruited fighters for
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq on The deployment riled ple and resources.” western Anbar province, the Islamist cause in Syria
Wednesday reiterated its Baghdad, which consid- The Islamic State group and raised the Iraqi flag
demand that Turkish troops ers the new troops an ille- seized much of northern over the main government and has been designated
withdraw from a north- gal incursion and has de- and western Iraq, includ- complex there.
ern camp where they are manded their immediate ing the second largest city, IS had seized Ramadi in a terrorist organization in
training anti-Islamic State and complete withdrawal. Mosul, in the summer of May, in its biggest ad-
fighters, warning that it will Turkey has begun with- 2014. The extremists have vance since the start of a Belgium. Both brothers also
consider military action if drawing troops, but some declared a caliphate in U.S.-led air campaign in
the soldiers remain. remain. Iraqi Foreign Minis- the areas of Iraq and Syria August 2014. went to Syria, were one
The dispute flared up in ter Ibrahim al-Jaafari told a under their control and Gen. Ismail al-Mahlawi, the
early December after Tur- press conference Wednes- have imposed a harsh and provincial military com- was killed and the other
key deployed reinforce- day that Baghdad will con- violent version of Islamic mander, said operations
ments to a camp in north- tinue to pursue a peaceful law. On Monday, Iraqi were paused in Ramadi on badly wounded. Attorney
ern Iraq’s Bashiqa region resolution, but warned that forces backed by U.S.-led Wednesday due to rainy
where Ankara is helping if “fighting is imposed on us, airstrikes drove IS militants weather. IS militants still Abderrahim Lahlili told the
to train Sunni and Kurdish we will consider it to pro- out of the city center of control around 30 percent
fighters to battle IS. tect our sovereignty, peo- Ramadi, the capital of the of the city.q AP his former client was
jailed for a time in Belgium
after going to Turkey to
fetch his wounded sibling
and bring him home. But
he said Belgian authorities
never definitively linked the
older Eloussaki to extremist
causes.q
