Turkey nabs Russian national suspected of plotting attack on Incirlik air base
Turkish authorities have detained a Russian national over suspicions that he was plotting to attack US fighter jets operating south of the country.
The semi-official Dogan news agency said Thursday that Renat Bakiev was suspected to be a member of Daesh, a Takfiri terrorist group operating in neighboring Iraq and Syria which has carried out a number of high-profile attacks in Turkey.
The report said Bakiev is accused of seeking to “stage a bomb attack aiming to bring down a US plane using a drone” at Incirlik, an air base in the southern Turkish province of Adana which is extensively used by the United States and its allies in their alleged fight against Daesh.
Bakiev has been detained in Adana and a court will now decide whether he would be remanded in custody.
Dogan said Bakiev is suspected of carrying out reconnaissance work for the plot related to Incirlik while he had also made preparations for a plot to attack a religious center in Adana city. The report did not elaborate further about the Incirlik plot but said Bakiev’s potential attack on Adana’s religious center was to target Alevis, people who practice a branch of Shia Islam.
Turkey has claimed to be tough on Daesh sleeper cells in the country, especially after a series of attacks claimed by the group left many dead last year. The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has also been blamed for a succession of attacks in 2016, a bloody year in Turkey’s history.
Turkey has been contributing to the US-led coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria against Daesh while the military continues with ground operations in Kurdish-dominated southeastern regions and territories inside Syria and Iraq, where the PKK and allies are thought to be operating.
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