Turk police probing al Qaeda suspects seize guns

Ankara, Feb 3: Turkish police have seized guns, fake identity cards and bugging devices in a search operation following the detention of dozens of people believed linked to al Qaeda, state-run Anatolian news agency said today.

Private NTV television said the group had been plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and had been able to eavesdrop on his bodyguards' radio, but this report could not be independently confirmed.

Of the 48 suspects detained in raids across the country on Monday, police have asked the courts to bring charges against 38 people, Anatolian said. The other 10 have been released.

The guns and other equipment were found at houses used by the suspects.

More than half of the suspects were detained in Konya, a city in central Turkey known for its religious zeal.

Police in secular but overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey have conducted a series of operations against suspected militant Islamists since November 2003 suicide bombings blamed on al Qaeda.

Those attacks in Istanbul targeted two synagogues, the British consulate and the local headquarters of HSBC Bank, killing more than 60 people.

Last Friday, a Turkish court jailed seven Islamist militants for being part of an armed gang that plotted to kill U.S.

President George W Bush during a 2004 NATO summit in Istanbul.

The seven men were members of Ansar al-Islam, a radical group believed to have ties to al Qaeda.

Last December, police detained a lawyer who said he was the leader of al Qaeda in Turkey and seized bomb-making material.

Reuters