Ten suspects have been detained by Istanbul police early Friday as part of an anti-terror operation targeting an ultra-left militant group.
The ten detainees are thought to be linked to the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, or MLKP.
Anti-terror squads, backed up by police helicopters, raided 20 locations in 15 districts including Bayrampasa, Eyup, Umraniye and Atasehir on both continents of the city in the early morning, police sources said.
The same operation also targeted addresses in five other Turkish provinces.
The MLKP, which was founded in 1994, is on a list of ‘primary terror organizations continuing their activities in Turkey’, held by the police.
Last July, the organization attempted to bomb the headquarters of Star Media Group in Istanbul. Bomb-disposal experts destroyed the device in a controlled explosion.
In a separate anti-terror raid last night, Istanbul police detained three PKK suspects in a house in Sancaktepe district, where one woman suspect, 19, believed to preparing a suicide attack in the country, was killed during a shootout.
Three firearms, ammunition and organizational documents were also seized during the operation.
