New Year bomb plot: Turkish police seize suicide vest, arrest two ‘Islamic State supporters’

Turkey has announced the foiling of an alleged New Year bomb plot, detaining two suspected Islamic State supporters and seizing a suicide bomb vest and other explosives that authorities said the suspects planned to detonate among revellers in the capital, Ankara.

“They were caught before they had the opportunity to take action,” said the office of the chief prosecutor of Ankara.

The men were detained Wednesday in a raid on a house in the low-income Mamak neighborhood, where police seized a suicide vest armed with a bomb, a second explosive device that was fortified with ball bearings and metal rods and concealed inside a back pack, as well as bomb-making equipment, according to the prosecutor’s office.

The two men, Turkish nationals identified only by their initials M.C. and A.Y., 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.

The state-run Anadolu Agency, quoting unnamed police and judiciary officials, said the would-be bombers had intended to blow themselves up during holiday festivities at bars and a shopping mall in the central Kizilay district.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, an investigation was continuing into what authorities characterised as a “serious threat” of holiday season attacks directed at police, soldiers and popular attractions in the capital city of Brussels. The arrest of two suspects was announced Tuesday by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, along with the seizure of military-style training uniforms, computer equipment and propaganda materials from the Islamic State. No weapons or explosives were found.

Brussels officials, however, were sufficiently worried about the remaining risks that Mayor Yvane Mayeur announced Wednesday evening that a New Year’s Eve fireworks display and related festivities planned Thursday in the city centre had been canceled.