41 suspects detained in anti-terror operation in Turkey's south

MERSİN - Doğan News Agency

CİHAN photo

A total of 41 people have been detained in an operation against the outlawed far-leftist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) in Turkey’s Mediterranean province of Mersin. 

Anti-terror police conducted the operation in a camping area in the Akdeniz district of Mersin, where alleged members of the DHKP-C had set up two tents and gathered to enhance their knowledge of the organization in order to recruit more people, according to a statement issued by the provincial police department.
 
It said the tents had been set up in a forested area named “Anatolia Camp,” to which suspected DHKP-C members from various Turkish cities had come to gather from Aug. 17 to Aug. 23. 

Along with various technological devices and documents belonging to the organization, 2,245 Turkish Liras were also seized in the operation. 

The statement said the main aim of the camp was to enhance the suspects’ ideological and theoretical knowledge of the organization so they could recruit and form a wider base for the outlawed organization. 

Turkey recently launched sweeping anti-terror operations against the DHKP-C, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), in which more than 2,500 people have been detained in the last month. 

Although the government said it was directing its efforts against ISIL, a majority of those detained have been members of the PKK, with smaller numbers coming from ISIL and the DHKP-C.