Turkey detains 45 fighter pilots for alleged links to Gulen

Turkish police detained 45 air force pilots on Thursday in the latest police operation relating to investigations into a failed coup by rogue military in July, the state-run news agency Anadolu said.

The operation targeting suspected followers of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for the putsch, focused on an air base in the central province of Konya and spread across 17 provinces, the agency said.

Prosecutors also issued detention warrants for 71 lieutenants and two colonels, it said. Other media reports said more than 200 soldiers and civilians had been detained in coup-related operations on Thursday.

Prosecutors could not immediately be reached for comment.

The failed coup, in which rogue soldiers commandeered fighter jets and tanks in a bid to seize power, and the subsequent purges have shaken the Turkish armed forces, the second-biggest in NATO, as they fight Islamic State and Kurdish militants in Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

Those detained on Thursday were accused of "armed rebellion against the Turkish Republic" and membership in what Ankara calls the Gulenist Terror Organisation, the privately owned Dogan news agency said. They bring to more than 300 the number of pilots dismissed or arrested in the coup investigation.

The government is working on projects to cover the sudden shortage in air force pilot numbers and will seek to draw back pilots from civil aviation, the Haberturk newspaper said on Thursday.

Police last week detained 47 soldiers in a similar operation focused on the Konya base, of which 29 were subsequently remanded into custody, Dogan said. On Wednesday, Ankara said it had replaced three-quarters of provincial police heads as part of the crackdown.

Turkish officials said the interior ministry ramped up efforts to purge police and state institutions after the appointment at the end of August of a new minister, Suleyman Soylu, who is seen as being close to President Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkish authorities have suspended more than 12,000 police officers over alleged links to Gulen.

Of the 12,801 suspended from duty as part of the investigation into the coup attempt, 2,523 were police chiefs, authorities said in a statement in early October. In total, Turkey has about 270,000 police officers.

Tens of thousands of people in the judiciary, civil service, military and education sector have been suspended, while 32,000 suspects have been placed under arrest on charges of links to the movement.