Turkey ISIS New Year's Eve, Foils Possible IS Plot

© Provided by AFP

Turkey detains 2 IS suspects over New Year plot as Europe fears attacks - Turkish police on Wednesday detained two Islamic State suspects accused of plotting to attack New Year's Eve celebrations, as jittery European capitals readied to see in 2016 under tight security.

In a sign of the widespread anxiety just weeks after the deadly Paris terror assaults, Brussels cancelled its festivities and fireworks, while Moscow said it would close off Red Square to the public.

Paris itself announced that 11,000 police, soldiers and firefighters would be patrolling the French capital, where the annual fireworks display on the Champs-Elysees had also been called off.

In Turkey meanwhile, officials said the two detained men, reportedly both Turks, were planning to stage suicide bombings in the centre of the capital Ankara that is expected to be packed with revellers on the night of December 31.

"They are suspected of being affiliated with the Islamic State and were planning an attack on the New Year in Ankara," a Turkish official told AFP, asking not to be named.

Turkey has been on a high security alert since October 10 when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of peace activists in Ankara, killing 103 people in the worst attack in the country's modern history.

According to the private NTV television, counter-terrorism police arrested the pair in the Mamak district on the outskirts of the capital, which is home to more than five million people.

The two were planning to stage an attack in Ankara's main Kizilay square, the Anatolia news agency reported, citing the prosecutor's office.

The suspects, identified as M.C. and A.Y., had already carried out surveillance on potential targets, according to the Ankara governor's office.

They had planned to strike two spots in Kizilay -- one outside a big shopping mall and the second in a street packed with pubs.

Police also confiscated one suicide bomb vest, one bomb mechanism with ball bearings and one rucksack with bomb-making materials, the governor's office said.

Television footage showed police with bomb-sniffing dogs searching the building where the two men were caught and the surrounding area.

- 'Turkey on frontline'-

The October attack in Ankara was blamed on IS jihadists, as were two other deadly strikes in the country's Kurdish-dominated southeast earlier in the summer.

"Turkey is a target of terror because it is on the frontline in the fight against IS," the Turkish official told AFP.

Earlier this month, police arrested an alleged member of the IS group suspected of planning a suicide attack on the US consulate in Istanbul.

Long criticised by its allies for taking too soft a line against jihadists, Turkey is taking firmer action against the IS group on the border with Syria after being shaken by attacks on its soil and the Paris assaults.