Category Archives: News

Mossad breaks with Netanyahu, warns U.S. not to impose new Iran sanctions

Josh Rogin and Eli Lake report: The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has broken ranks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling U.S. officials and lawmakers that a new Iran sanctions bill in the U.S. Congress would tank the Iran nuclear negotiations.

Already, the Barack Obama administration and some leading Republican senators are using the Israeli internal disagreement to undermine support for the bill, authored by Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Robert Menendez, which would enact new sanctions if current negotiations falter.

Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — supported by Republican Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain — is pushing for his own legislation on the Iran nuclear deal, which doesn’t contain sanctions but would require that the Senate vote on any pact that is agreed upon in Geneva. The White House is opposed to both the Kirk-Menendez bill and the Corker bill; it doesn’t want Congress to meddle at all in the delicate multilateral diplomacy with Iran.

Israeli intelligence officials have been briefing both Obama administration officials and visiting U.S. senators about their concerns on the Kirk-Menendez bill, which would increase sanctions on Iran only if the Iranian government can’t strike a deal with the so-called P5+1 countries by a June 30 deadline or fails to live up to its commitments. Meanwhile, the Israeli prime minister’s office has been supporting the Kirk-Menendez bill, as does the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, ahead of what will be a major foreign policy confrontation between the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government in coming weeks. [Continue reading…]

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Phone calls detail Argentina’s efforts to shield Iran

The New York Times reports: Intercepted conversations between representatives of the Iranian and Argentine governments point to a long pattern of secret negotiations to reach a deal in which Argentina would receive oil in exchange for shielding Iranian officials from charges that they orchestrated the bombing of a Jewish community center in 1994.

The transcripts were made public by an Argentine judge on Tuesday night, as part of a 289-page criminal complaint written by Alberto Nisman, the special prosecutor investigating the attack. Mr. Nisman was found dead in his luxury apartment on Sunday, the night before he was to present his findings to Congress.

But the intercepted telephone conversations he described before his death outline an elaborate effort to reward Argentina for shipping food to Iran — and for seeking to derail the investigation into a terrorist attack in the Argentine capital that killed 85 people.

The deal never materialized, the complaint says, in part because Argentine officials failed to persuade Interpol to lift the arrest warrants against Iranian officials wanted in Argentina in connection with the attack.

The phone conversations are believed to have been intercepted by Argentine intelligence officials. If proved accurate, the transcripts would show a concerted effort by representatives of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government to shift suspicions away from Iran in order to gain access to Iranian markets and to ease Argentina’s energy troubles. [Continue reading…]

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Kurdish troops advance on Mosul on three sides

The Washington Post reports: Kurdish forces claimed to have pushed back Islamic State militants from a 300-square-mile area of northern Iraq on Wednesday and said they cut one of the extremist group’s key supply lines to the occupied city of Mosul.

The multi-pronged operation, which began in the early morning, involved about 5,000 Kurdish soldiers, known as peshmerga and was backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, according to a statement from the government of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

The offensive came amid speculation that Iraqi forces are preparing for an assault on Mosul, one of Iraq’s biggest cities, which was seized by Islamic State extremists in June as they swept across the north.

Under pressure from airstrikes and paranoid about informants, the militants have cut phone lines and Internet connections to the city in recent months. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS has turned Mosul into a fortress

Reuters reports: In a government building in Mosul, a handful of Iraqi contractors gathered to compete for a tender last month.

It was the kind of routine session that happens in cities everywhere — except here the contract was for fortifications ordered by the new rulers in town, Islamic State.

One member of the radical Islamist group grabbed a map and explained to those present what was required.

“Under Islamic State’s tender document, a trench two meters in depth and two meters in width needs to be dug around Mosul,” said a source in the city close to the tendering process.

The winning contractor will be paid the equivalent of $4,000 for each kilometer of trench, the source said.

The tender demonstrates Islamic State’s determination to defend the city that it conquered in June, as the extremists grabbed a large area of territory from Baghdad. Rich in Muslim history, Mosul stands at the center of the group’s aim to carve out a modern caliphate from large parts of Syria and Iraq.

Interviews with 11 Mosul residents, several of whom fled this month, reveal how Islamic State has created a police state strong enough to weather severe popular discontent and military setbacks, including the deaths of senior leaders.

Along with the planned trench, the militants have sealed Mosul’s western entrance with giant cement walls.

They also blew up a bridge that Kurdish fighters could use to attack Mosul.

“They will fight to the last drop of blood defending Mosul, and for them this battle could define their existence. Losing Mosul means a final defeat for Islamic State in Iraq,” said a retired army general living in Mosul. [Continue reading…]

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Tweet by @ShamiWitness to help ISIS fighter enter Syria to be used as proof

The Indian Express reports: Guidance given to a foreign fighter on how to cross from Turkey to Syria to join the Islamic State’s (IS) war in Syria and Iraq via Twitter has emerged as key evidence against West Bengal youth Mehdi Masroor Biswas (24), who was arrested by the Bangalore police last month for operating pro-IS Twitter account @ShamiWitness.

Investigations since his arrest on December 13 have revealed that he was consulted about possible routes to entry Syria from Turkey by an IS fighter based in Syria. The query was posed by the IS fighter on behalf of a French and English speaking fighter with the Twitter handle @TalabAlHaqq, who according to his tweet trail had been waiting on the border since June 19, 2014 for information on how to enter Syria.

On June 23, @shamiwitness tweeted to @TalabAlHaqq stating “Tal Abyad crossing open now” while also marking the tweet to a Twitter handle @onthatpath3 and @AbuUmar8246. This tweet from @shamiwitness at the instance of an IS fighter @onthatpath3 — suspected to be an American of Somali origin with the nom de guerre Ibn Zubayr — is set to be placed in court as key evidence against Biswas.

Biswas has been booked under section 125 of the Indian Penal Code for “waging war against any Asiatic power in alliance with the Government of India’’ — an offence with a maximum punishment of seven years imprisonment. Biswas has also been booked under section 39 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 2004, for supporting a terrorist organisation and section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 for the misuse of computers. [Continue reading…]

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Yemen government resigns

PRI reports: Omeisy says the presence of rebel soldiers, and the occasional shelling, have made more of an impact on Western media than on Sana’a residents. “Everybody’s armed in Yemen,” he says. “You go down the street even — before the conflict — and everybody’s basically armed. Shooting in the air is actually quite common.”

And there’s been plenty of military movement in the capital over the past year. “When things like this happen — when they say, like, ‘Now the Houthis are moving into Sana’a,’ the media tends to exaggerate. For us who live here in Yemen, this is not actually big news,’ Omeisy says.

Yemen’s government, under President Hadi, has also made little headway in improving living conditions. “What we’ve seen is a deterioration of the situation overall — the electricity, the unavailability of gasoline, cooking gas, oil and the security [problem with al-Qaeda]. What Yemenis need to see is change.” [Continue reading…]

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Nigeria’s prospects for defeating Boko Haram look bleak

The Guardian reports: Nigeria’s current military strategy for defeating Boko Horam is unlikely to succeed, analysts have warned, with the international community largely powerless to defeat the increasingly rampant Islamist group.

Corruption inside the Nigerian army, unpaid wages, and mutinies among troops have all facilitated Boko Haram’s rise, they said. On Sunday the sect, which has killed thousands in its bid to carve out an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, kidnapped about 80 people in neighbouring Cameroon. The victims of this latest cross-border attack included many children. The Cameroon army subsequently managed to free 20 of the hostages.

Dr Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos, an associate fellow at Chatham House’s Africa programme, said Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, had been manifestly unable to halt Boko Haram’s advance. The opposition leader, Gen Muhammadu Buhari, who is seeking to unseat Jonathan in the election on 14 February, may be better able to overhaul the country’s dysfunctional military, he suggested. [Continue reading…]

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Secret journal allegedly shows Ross Ulbricht planned a Silk Road bank

Andy Greenberg reports: Silk Road, for its more than two and a half years online, was an unprecedented online narcotics emporium. But according to a journal found on the laptop of its alleged creator Ross Ulbricht, Ulbricht wanted it to be even more: a “brand” that extended from communications tools to banking.

In Ulbricht’s trial Wednesday, prosecutor Timothy Howard read aloud from a journal that was found on the defendant’s Samsung 700z laptop, which was seized at the time of his arrest in a San Francisco library in October, 2013. The journal, which goes back at least as far as 2010, seems to provide the most detailed look yet at Ulbricht’s plans for his libertarian contraband market. And the journal reveals that before his arrest, Ulbricht had allegedly planned to create chat software, a currency exchange, and more, all under the “Silk Road brand.”

The young Texan had allegedly planned to expand the Silk Road into a “brand people can come to trust and rely on,” according to a 2011 passage from the journal. “Silk Road chat, Silk Road exchange, Silk Road credit union, Silk Road market, Silk Road everything!” [Continue reading…]

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French PM says ‘apartheid’ is leaving minorities on the fringe

The New York Times reports: Prime Minister Manuel Valls of France on Tuesday cited a deep divide in the country, likening it to a state of “territorial, social, ethnic apartheid” that has left part of the population on the cultural fringe.

Mr. Valls, often regarded as the most popular politician in the leftist government of President François Hollande, has been known for his outspokenness and tough stance on radical Islam. A day after the end of the attacks in the Paris area that left 17 people dead at the hands of three Muslim extremists from France, Mr. Valls spoke of waging a war “against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity.”

But during a traditional New Year’s speech on Tuesday, Mr. Valls acknowledged that France had a deeply rooted problem that, he implied, had resulted in a divided society.

“These last few days have emphasized many of the evils which have undermined our country from within, or challenges we have to face,” he said. “To that, we must add all the divisions, the tensions that have been brewing for too long and that we mention sporadically.”

“A territorial, social, ethnic apartheid has spread across our country,” he said.

Mr. Valls avoided singling out Muslims, but it was clear that his remarks were a response to the terrorist attacks this month and addressed growing concerns about the situation of “two Frances” that, he said, has relegated the poor and heavily immigrant population to ghetto-like suburbs of Paris, where many Muslims from North African backgrounds live. [Continue reading…]

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PEGIDA leader poses as Hitler in social media post

Channel 4 News reports: A photo posted by Pegida leader Lutz Bachmann posing as Adolf Hitler on his personal Facebook profile has gone viral after being posted online by the Dresden Morgenpost.
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The German far-right anti-immigrant Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamification of the West) started to grow into prominence in October 2014 after staging weekly anti-Islam demonstrations drawing thousands to the east German city of Dresden.

Recent protests in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack have drawn crowds of over 25,000 people, sparking counter demonstrations across the country.

The photograph, which was taken before Pegida grew into prominence, shows Bachmann with slicked down hair and a Toothbrush moustache appeared above the caption “He’s back!”

Morgenpost also published screen grabs of racist posts by Bachmann’s on his Facebook profile from 2012 of a Ku Klux Klan member accompanied by the slogan: “Three Ks a day keeps the minorities away.”

41 year-old convited criminal Bachmann, who insists Pegida are “normal people” who seek tighter immigration controls and “protection of Judeo-Christian culture”, deleted his Facebook profile after being contacted by Morgenpost. [Continue reading…]

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Before ‘suicide,’ Argentine prosecutor left a note — not a suicide note, but a shopping list

There is still a lot of skepticism being voiced about whether the Argentine prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, committed suicide or was murdered. Although his body was found inside and blocking the bathroom in which he died, there are no reports of him leaving a suicide note which might have explained what happened. Instead, he apparently left his maid a shopping list for groceries. Why would a man contemplating his own death, be concerned about running out of food?

The Guardian reports: Few believe it was suicide, although that is the version the government immediately espoused. “How can we know what went through the prosecutor’s head at that moment?”, asked the presidential secretary, Aníbal Fernández, on Monday morning speaking to the press.

Those with longer memories recall a tradition of political “suicides” in Argentina going back decades, including the mysterious death of Juan Duarte, the brother of the legendary Evita Perón, who was “suicided” in 1953, less than a year after his sister had died of cancer, a death that some versions say was related to the post-war transfer of Nazi funds to Argentina.

Nisman’s death has reverberated through the country. News coverage has been round the clock and the two top trending topics on Twitter in Argentina are #MuerteDeNisman (Death of Nisman) and #CFKAsesina (CFK Murderer).

Journalists who had spoken with Nisman in the past few days found him anything but suicidal. The prosecutor was due to speak to a special committee of congress on Monday to reveal more details of his intercepts.

To one journalist, Nisman said he had revealed only 5% so far of what he had discovered.

The New York Times reports: Facing a public outcry over the mysterious death of Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor leading the investigation into the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center here, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her allies lashed out at the dead man on Tuesday, questioning whether he had allied himself with forces seeking to weaken her government.

In a rambling 2,100-word letter posted on her Facebook page, Mrs. Kirchner, whom Mr. Nisman had accused of orchestrating a cover-up to protect Iranian officials implicated in the bombing in exchange for Iranian oil, said that Mr. Nisman had been part of an effort to “sidetrack, lie, cover up and confuse” attempts to finally resolve the case.

The attacks on Mr. Nisman after his death, including assertions in the state-controlled news media that he had been manipulated by Antonio Stiusso, a former intelligence official ousted last month by Mrs. Kirchner, raised questions here on whether her government was supporting efforts to determine the cause of his death. [Continue reading…]

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Does anyone control Yemen?

The New York Times: Houthi rebel militiamen seized control of the palace of Yemen’s president and clashed with guards outside his residence on Tuesday in an escalation of the violent crisis that has gripped the capital for days, raising fears of a coup in one of the Arab world’s most impoverished and insecure states.

The president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, viewed by the United States as a crucial counterterrorism ally, was believed to be in the capital, but his exact whereabouts was unknown. He made no public statements as the fighting escalated, though Houthi leaders insisted that he was safe and in his home.

The Soufan Group: It has taken decades of deteriorating politics and security for Yemen to reach its current level of crisis, though now the costs might come not just in the form of the suffering of the Yemeni people but also in regional instability and the proliferation of international terrorism. While the causes of Yemen’s crisis are intensely local—having to do with longstanding issues of corruption, tribal and North-South differences, and a constitution in need of amending — it is being amplified both by meddling regional actors and a menacing terrorist group with international reach.

The move by Houthi rebels to seize control of the presidential palace in Sana’a is a warning to President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to meet the conditions of Abdul Malik al-Houthi, head of the Houthi movement Ansar Allah. In his January 20 televised speech regarding the fighting in Sana’a, al-Houthi accused Hadi of “covering for corruption.” He claimed that the Yemeni president “refused to order the army to fight against al-Qaeda.” Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is based in Yemen and is the terror network’s most capable and operationally active affiliate, despite a relatively robust U.S. counterterrorism drone program that seeks to keep the group off balance. Going further, al-Houthi accused the Hadi administration of providing weapons to AQAP.

The Houthis are demanding changes to the current constitutional amendments under consideration. They oppose dividing the country into six administrative regions, and demand grouping the country into two regions—north and south—that allow them to solidify the gains they have made since the 2011 ouster of long-time Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Salah. In his speech, al-Houthi demanded action against systemic corruption, pressure against AQAP in the Ma’rib Governorate, and quicker action to amend the constitution and preserve the goals of the Peace and National Partnership Agreement signed in September 2014 that expands Houthi political power.

New Atlanticist: During Yemen’s gradual slump into disorder, US policy has continued to focus on military action — attacking AQAP personnel with missiles fired from drone aircraft, and supporting Yemeni government counterterrorism forces, [Danya] Greenfield said in an interview. But it has not given enough attention or resources to address the broader failings of the transition government. Yemen has failed to implement steps agreed on in the National Dialogue, allowing increasingly frustrated Yemenis to be drawn in by AQAP militants, the Shiite Houthi rebels, and southern secessionists, according to Greenfield, the deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

“We’re not accurately diagnosing the problem and therefore not prescribing the right solution or the right kind of assistance strategy that would really respond to the needs on the ground,” Greenfield said. Her comments updated an Atlantic Council report she co-authored in October with former US Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine. “Any US strategy to counter terrorists needs to address the pervasive lack of economic opportunity, structural unemployment, cronyism, and the inequitable distribution of state resources,” Greenfield and Bodine wrote.

Recently, “the US approach underestimated the threat of the Houthi movement, which poses a much broader security dilemma for Yemeni citizens and the Yemeni government,” Greenfield said in the interview January 20.

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Delay to Britain’s Iraq War inquiry report causes outcry

Reuters reports: A decision to delay a long-awaited official report into Britain’s role in the Iraq War until after a general election in May drew accusations of a whitewash on Wednesday and demands for British voters to be given its findings.

The investigation, headed by former civil servant John Chilcot, was set up six years ago to learn lessons from the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq which ousted Saddam Hussein and its aftermath. Britain was the U.S. main ally in the war despite widespread public opposition.

Rose Gentle, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq in 2004, said she was disgusted the report had taken so long to come out.

“We just feel totally let down, we just feel it’s going to be a total whitewash now,” she told BBC television.

The latest delay, said to be necessary to allow those criticized to respond, adds to a string of hold-ups ascribed in part to U.S. sensitivities about releasing exchanges between then-leaders U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. signals policy shift on how to end war in Syria

The New York Times reports: American support for a pair of diplomatic initiatives in Syria underscores the shifting views of how to end the civil war there and the West’s quiet retreat from its demand that the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, step down immediately.

The Obama administration maintains that a lasting political solution requires Mr. Assad’s exit. But facing military stalemate, well-armed jihadists and the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, the United States is going along with international diplomatic efforts that could lead to more gradual change in Syria.

That shift comes along with other American actions that Mr. Assad’s supporters and opponents take as proof Washington now believes that if Mr. Assad is ousted, there will be nothing to check the spreading chaos and extremism. American planes now bomb the Islamic State group’s militants in Syria, sharing skies with Syrian jets. American officials assure Mr. Assad, through Iraqi intermediaries, that Syria’s military is not their target. The United States still trains and equips Syrian insurgents, but now mainly to fight the Islamic State, not the government.

Now, the United States and other Western countries have publicly welcomed initiatives — one from the United Nations and one from Russia — that postpone any revival of the United States-backed Geneva framework, which called for a wholesale transfer of power to a “transitional governing body.” The last Geneva talks failed a year ago amid vehement disagreement over whether that body could include Mr. Assad.

One of the new concepts is a United Nations proposal to “freeze” the fighting on the ground, first in the strategic crossroads city of Aleppo. The other is an initiative from Russia, Mr. Assad’s most powerful supporter, to try to spur talks between the warring sides in Moscow in late January. Diplomats and others briefed on the plans say one Russian vision is of power-sharing between Mr. Assad’s government and some opposition figures, and perhaps parliamentary elections that would precede any change in the presidency.

But the diplomatic proposals face serious challenges, relying on the leader of a rump state who is propped up by foreign powers and hemmed in by a growing and effective extremist force that wants to build a caliphate. Many of America’s allies in the Syrian opposition reject the plans, and there is little indication that Mr. Assad or his main allies, Russia and Iran, feel any need to compromise. The American-backed Free Syrian Army is on the ropes in northern Syria, once its stronghold, and insurgents disagree among themselves over military and political strategy.

And perhaps most of all, the Islamic State controls half of Syria’s territory, though mostly desert, and it has managed to strengthen its grip even as the United States and its allies try to oust it from neighboring Iraq. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS threatens to kill two Japanese hostages, demands ransom from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

The Washington Post reports: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shifted his Middle East visit into crisis mode Tuesday after the Islamic State threatened to kill two Japanese hostages unless the extremist group receives a $200 million ransom within the next 72 hours.

The video, posted on militants’ Web sites Tuesday, shows an apparent Islamic State fighter wielding a knife and standing between two hostages wearing orange jumpsuits, whom the militants identify as Kenji Goto Jogo and Haruna Yukawa.

A senior Japanese diplomat, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the subject, said Goto, a well-respected Japanese journalist, was last heard from on Oct. 24. He had told friends he was traveling to Kobane, a flashpoint town on the Turkish-Syrian border, but it is unclear exactly where he was kidnapped.

“I’m in Syria for reporting,” he told the AP in an e-mail late last year. “I hope I can convey the atmosphere from where I am and share it.”

Yukawa went missing in August.

“We don’t know what he does exactly,” the diplomat said. “He says he runs a private military company, but we don’t have these kinds of companies in Japan. We believe he is a military fanatic, but he doesn’t have any official military experience. He’s not a fighter.”

“Officially, we don’t pay ransoms,” he added. “In some incidents in the past we might have paid, but we’d never announce it. I don’t know what will happen now.” [Continue reading…]

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Iran: Israeli air strike killed general advising Syrian government forces

McClatchy: Iran said Monday that a general in its elite Revolutionary Guards who’d been sent to Syria to help that country battle rebels died in an Israeli air strike on Sunday, raising tensions and heightening expectations of possible retaliation.

A statement on the website of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards said that Gen. Mohammad Ali Allahdadi was killed when Israeli planes bombed a convoy in southern Syria, where troops loyal to President Bashar Assad have been fighting rebels that include al Qaida’s Nusra Front.

The statement said Allahdadi had been helping the Syrian government “confront the takfiri Salafist terrorists,” using religious terms to refer to the Sunni Muslim rebels who’ve been trying to topple Assad for nearly four years.

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Escape to Syria of Charlie Hebdo suspect shows Turkey’s role as jihadi highway

McClatchy reports: For the wife of the gunman accused of killing four people at a kosher super market in Paris 10 days ago, the escape from questioning about complicity in the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks was relatively easy.

Once Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, got to Turkey, she followed the path of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other European jihadi volunteers before her – into the self-declared Islamic State.

Aided by smugglers in the Turkish border town of Akcakale, and several companions, she walked through a disused border crossing on Jan. 8 and into the Syrian town of Tal Abyad, which has been an Islamic State stronghold for months.

She would have passed a guard shack on the old road between Alcakale and Tal Abyad, but if Turkish border guards took any notice, they made no effort to stop her, according to a Turkish security official, who spoke anonymously because speaking on the record was not allowed.

By the time French police identified Boumeddiene as one of the suspects in a terrorism onslaught that cost 17 people their lives and that France is calling its equivalent of 9/11, she was beyond their reach. The other three suspects, her husband, Amedy Coulibaly, who is believed to have killed a policewoman in addition to the four at the supermarket, and Said and Cherif Kouachi, blamed for the deaths of 12 at the Charlie Hebdo offices, would die in shootouts with police.

The Algerian-born Boumeddiene is not the first foreigner to cross into Islamic State territory from Akcakale and the surrounding region. But her escape focuses fresh attention on what is a sore point between Turkey and its European neighbors – the ease with which disaffected European youth are able to cross into Islamic State territory from Turkey and join the jihad.

Turkey insists it is taking steps to stop the flow of recruits to the Islamic State. But visits by a McClatchy reporter to Akcakale and three nearby villages found that a foreigner can easily cross into Syria. Smugglers’ fees are a pittance, as little as $30, and daylight crossings are common. Official efforts to discourage crossings to Syria appeared non-existent. [Continue reading…]

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Turkish police launch wiretapping raids targeting Erdogan foes

Reuters: Turkish police detained 23 people suspected of a role in illegal wiretapping on Tuesday in a move local media said was aimed at supporters of President Tayyip Erdogan’s ally-turned-foe, U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Ankara prosecutors are investigating claims of wiretapping targeting Erdogan, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the head of the armed forces and other top officials. The prosecutor’s office was not available for comment.

Separately, the interior ministry replaced police chiefs in 21 provinces, according to an announcement published in Turkey’s Official Gazette. It was not immediately clear why they were being replaced.

Broadcasters including CNN Turk said the raids, in four provinces including Ankara, were against the “parallel structure”, the term Erdogan uses to refer to Gulen’s supporters in the judiciary, police and other institutions.

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