Turkey seeks arrest of 360 Gulen supporters in army: report

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Turkish prosecutors have issued detention warrants for 360 people in an operation targeting supporters of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen within the army, state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Wednesday.

It said 333 of those facing arrest in the Istanbul-based operation were soldiers, 216 of them serving personnel.

Ankara accuses Gulen and his network of orchestrating an attempted coup last year. Gulen denies the charge.

Istanbul police officers were continuing operations to capture the suspects, Anadolu said. The private Dogan news agency said seven of those facing arrest were pilots.

More than 48,000 people have been remanded in custody in Turkey over alleged links to the Gulen network since July 15, 2016, according to Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu.

Some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from jobs in the public and private sectors since the July 15 failed putsch, in which 250 people were killed.

"State institutions have been largely cleared of Gulenists," Soylu was quoted by Anadolu as saying earlier this month.

Sixteen months on, operations targeting supporters of the US-based preacher are continuing on a daily basis. Last week, nearly 700 people were detained in related investigations.

While Turkey's Western allies and rights groups have voiced concern that Ankara is using the investigations to crack down on dissent, Turkey says only such a purge could neutralize the threat represented by Gulen's network, which it says infiltrated institutions such as the military, judiciary and schools.

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Source(s): Reuters ,Xinhua News Agency