<html>
<body>
<tt><br>
<font face="arial" size=3>Europe hunts banned Turkish group<br>
========================<br>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3589871.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3589871.stm<br>
</a>The group aims to install a Marxist government in Turkey<br><br>
A series of arrests have been made in co-ordinated raids across
Europe<br>
targeting a Turkish extremist group. Istanbul police arrested 37
suspected members of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front,
DHKP-C, which has carried out many attacks in Turkey.<br><br>
Another 16 were held in Italy, Germany, Belgium and the
Netherlands.<br><br>
The group, which aims to topple the Turkish government and replace it
<br>
with a Marxist one, is branded as a terror organisation by the US and the
EU.<br><br>
"This group (has been) recently inspired by al-Qaeda" Dr Ihsan
Bal, Ankara's Police Academy<br><br>
The main thrust of its political stance is hostility to what it
calls<br>
American imperialism and Washington's allies in the Middle East - <br>
Israel, Britain and Turkey itself, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent
Barnaby Mason says.<br><br>
The group - which has been active since the mid-1970s - has
admitted<br>
carrying out two suicide bomb attacks in Istanbul in September 2001
<br>
that killed three policemen and one Australian citizen and wounded 28
<br>
people, mostly police officers. It has carried out other bombings since
2001.<br><br>
A leading Turkish counter-terrorism expert told the BBC that recent<br>
intelligence suggested that DHKP-C has been trying to regain prominence
<br>
by imitating the style of al-Qaeda.<br><br>
"This group (has been) recently inspired by al-Qaeda, although they
are <br>
not in the same line of argument," Dr Ihsan Bal from the Police
Academy in<br>
Ankara said.<br><br>
Money flows<br>
--------------<br>
The early morning raids come after a year of investigation into the<br>
activities of the group - begun by Turkish and German police.<br><br>
Perugia is a possible target, Italian authorities had warned.<br><br>
German and Italian investigators subsequently discovered that the group
<br>
was also active in the Netherlands and Belgium and co-ordinated the
<br>
European crackdown outside Turkey, a Turkish interior ministry official
said.<br><br>
"Thirty-seven people were arrested in Istanbul and 16
elsewhere," the official said.<br><br>
Authorities in Italy arrested three Italian and two Turkish
nationals.<br><br>
The Italian raid centred on the town of Perugia - which has a university
for foreigners.<br><br>
At a news conference, Perugia's chief prosecutor Nicola Miriano
said<br>
telephone and wire taps during the investigation had revealed the flow
<br>
of funds, arms and information among supporters of the group in many
<br>
European countries.<br><br>
"We didn't have information of an attack on Italy, but there was
information pointing to the claiming of attacks in Turkey," Mr
Miriano said.<br><br>
"We are convinced that we have eliminated the Italian cell of the
group,<br>
although we still have to verify other things," the prosecutor
added.<br><br>
One of the Turkish nationals was said to have headed the DHKP-C cell -
<br>
which was helped by local Italian anti-imperialist campaigners, Italian
authorities say.<br><br>
Among the Italians arrested is Moreno Pasquinelli, spokesman for
the<br>
Anti-imperialist Camp - a group opposed to the US-led occupation of
<br>
Iraq.<br><br>
They had been gathering funds to finance the Iraqi resistance to
the<br>
occupation.<br><br>
"We support the armed struggle in Iraq. Our money is to help them,
it<br>
doesn't matter to us if they use it to buy weapons, Kalashnikovs,
or<br>
medicines for people," Mr Pasquinelli told the BBC last
year.<br><br>
<br>
</font><font face="Courier, Courier" size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom
Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">www.freedomarchives.org</a></body>
</html>