The Washington Post reports: A sweeping campaign to arrest renegade military officers, soldiers and other suspects linked to a failed coup plot in Turkey showed signs on Sunday of turning into a nationwide crackdown against opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government.

The country’s justice minister confirmed that as many as 6,000 people, ranging from commanders to civil servants, have been detained over the incident.

Among those arrested was the commander of a Turkish airbase used by U.S. forces to launch raids on jihadists in Iraq and Syria, a senior Turkish official said. Gen. Bekir Ercan Van, 10th Base Commander at Incirlik Air Base, was detained along with 10 other soldiers on Sunday. The facility in southern Turkey is a major NATO military installation hosting U.S. forces that control one of the largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons in Europe.

Earlier in the day, the state-run news outlet identified Maj. Gen. Ozhan Ozbakir, commander of a large garrison in southwestern Turkey, as one of the officers detained in the latest and ongoing campaign of arrests. [Continue reading…]