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ANKARA, Aug 6 (AFP) - 12h50 - A suspected
militant from the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
planning bomb attacks on government and tourist
targets has been detained in the southern Turkish
province of Mersin along with four others who were
allegedly helping him, officials said on Saturday.
The police seized 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds) of
plastic explosives, 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of
chemicals used in the making of bombs and a
detonator in the house of one of the suspects, the
Mersin security department said in a statement sent
to AFP.
The five were detained while they were "in the
process of preparing for attacks on government
buildings as well as facilities of touristic and
economic significance in our province," the
statement said.
They were apprehended on Tuesday and Wednesday as
part of an operation against the "separatist
terrorist organization" -- a customary reference to
the PKK which has fought the Ankara government since
1984.
Mersin, located on Turkey's southern Mediterranean
coast, is home to a large community of immigrants
from the mainly Kurdish southeast. It is popular
mainly with local tourists.
The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist organization
also by the United States and the European Union,
has markedly stepped up attacks over the past
several months, after calling off a five-year
unilateral truce in June 2004.
A string of explosions -- including three deadly
ones -- have hit Turkey over the past month.
The PKK is held responsible for the July 16 bombing
of a bus in the popular Aegean resort of Kusadasi,
which killed five people, including a British woman
and an Irish teenager.
On Thursday, two people were killed when explosives
planted in a garbage container in Istanbul went off.
The media pointed an accusing finger at the PKK,
even though officials have not yet named a suspect.
A little known Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Freedom
Falcons, which police say is a cover for PKK attacks
on civilians, claimed responsibility for a bomb
attack in the Aegean resort of Cesme on July 10,
which left 20 people injured, and threatened more
attacks on tourist targets.
In the most recent incident, a bomb blast blamed on
the PKK killed five soldiers in the southeastern
province of Hakkari on Friday, prompting a pledge by
the army to clamp down on the rebels.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some
37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK took up arms
for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast.
AFP
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