ISTANBUL, Dec 19: Turkish police have detained 38 people in raids on suspected members of Al Qaeda, state-run Anatolian news agency reported on Friday.

The raids were the latest in a series targeting suspected members of the militant group in recent years.

Islamist radicals have carried out bomb attacks in Turkey in the past, most notably in 2003 when Al Qaeda militants killed more than 60 people in a series of bombings in Istanbul.

“Thirty-eight people were detained in an operation against a radical right-wing group carried out simultaneously in Istanbul, Izmir and Manisa,” the agency reported Istanbul police chief Celalettin Cerrah as telling a news conference.—Reuters