Turkey Foils New Year’s Eve Terror Attack Plot

From Sky News

Turkish police have detained two suspected Islamic State militants believed to be planning suicide attacks during New Year celebrations in central Ankara, officials said.

The two men were detained in a raid on a house in the low-income Mamak neighbourhood of Ankara.

Police seized a suicide vest armed with a bomb, an explosive device that was fortified with ball bearings and metal sticks and placed inside a backpack as well as bomb-making equipment, according to the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s office.

The two Turkish nationals, identified by their initials MC and AY were being questioned by anti-terrorism police.

The prosecutor’s office said the men had staked out possible locations in Ankara, where they could carry out the attacks.

State-run Anadolu Agency, quoting unnamed police and judiciary officials, said the would-be attackers were planning to detonate the bombs at two locations near bars and a shopping mall near Turkey’s central Kizilay district during the celebrations.

Turkey has a 900-km (550-mile) border with Syria, some of which is controlled by Islamic State on the Syrian side and has been used as a transit route by would-be jihadis from early on in Syria’s civil war.