ISTANBUL — Turkish police detained dozens more suspected Daesh (the so-called IS) and Kurdish militants in early morning raids on Monday, local media said, amid a crackdown on the armed groups and airstrikes in Syria and Iraq. Long a reluctant member of the US-led coalition against Daesh, Turkey last week made a dramatic turnaround by granting the alliance access to its air bases and bombarding targets in Syria linked to the militant movement as well as detaining suspected members in Turkish cities. Turkish jets also attacked Kurdish insurgent camps in Iraq for a second night on Sunday, in a campaign that could end Ankara's peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Broadcaster CNN Turk said more than 900 suspected Daesh and PKK members had been arrested in the past week in a domestic crackdown carried out alongside the airstrikes. Some 500 police swept through the Haci Bayram district of the capital Ankara and detained 15 Daesh suspects, 11 of them foreign, the pro-government Yeni Safak daily said. Operations also took place in the southeastern city of Adiyaman, where 19 people with alleged links to the PKK were detained, it reported. Turkey's airstrikes on PKK camps in northern Iraq come despite negotiations with the rebels that were launched in 2012 to end a 30-year insurgency. The PKK has said the action has rendered the peace process meaningless. The Syrian Kurdish YPG, which has links to the PKK but which has coordinated with the United States in the fight against Islamic ISIS its positions on the outskirts of the Daesh-held town of Jarablus. — Reuters
