Turkey detains 33 accused of spying for Mossad

AFP | Istanbul                                                       

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Turkey announced yesterday it had detained 33 people suspected of planning abductions and spying on behalf of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the suspects were rounded up in raids across Istanbul and seven other provinces.

It was not immediately clear if they were Israeli nationals or locals allegedly working with Mossad. Yerlikaya’s office released video footage showing armed security service agents breaking down doors and handcuffing suspects in their homes.

The Istanbul public prosecutor’s office said 13 additional suspects remained at large. The raids came weeks after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned of “serious consequences” should Israel attempt to target figures from Palestinian militant group Hamas living or working in Turkey.

“There is an insidious operation and sabotage attempts being made against Turkey and its interests,” Erdogan said after the raids were announced. “We will definitely destroy this game,” he said in televised remarks.

Relations between Turkey and Israel imploded following the outbreak of the war in Gaza nearly three months ago. Erdogan has turned into one of the world’s harshest critics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Turkish leader last week compared Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and demanded that Israel’s Western allies drop their support for the “terrorism” being conducted by Israeli troops in Gaza. Erdogan has also recalled Ankara’s envoy to Tel Aviv, and pushed for the trial of Israeli commanders and political leaders at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The president’s ruling Islamic conservative AKP party also led tens of thousands of protesters out on the streets of Istanbul on Monday for one of Turkey’s biggest anti-Israel rallies of the entire war. UN agencies have voiced alarm over a spiralling humanitarian crisis facing Gaza’s 2.4 million people, who remain under siege and bombardment, most of them displaced and huddling in shelters and tents, amid dire food shortages.