Turkish police have detained five men suspected of having ties to a group fighting with the al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan, a senior security official in Izmir in western Turkey said today.
The five, who were described as students, were taken to court after being arrested two days earlier in west and southwest Turkey.
"We detained five men from five different cities - Hatay, Istanbul, Kayseri, Antalya and Izmir," the official said.
"These people belong to an Aegean branch of al-Qaeda. The leader is currently in Afghanistan, fighting for al Qaeda."
The leader of the group was named "Zekeriya" and served time in prison before joining the insurgency against Afghan and US-led forces in Afghanistan, said the official.
The arrests come hard on the heels of last month's security scare across Europe, which followed the arrest in Germany of European Muslims believed to belong to a branch of Osama bin Laden's network.
Graduates of bin Laden's training camps were behind the bomb attacks in 2003 that killed 57 people and wounded hundreds in Istanbul, alerting the government to the need to monitor any rise in the number of Turks going to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Turkish police often arrest suspected Islamist militants and describe them as having links to al-Qaeda, though details seldom emerge.
Turks have until now played little part in al-Qaeda's global jihad, but security analysts have noted an increase in the number of Turkish language jihadi websites, some of which have posted obituaries for Turkish militants killed in Afghanistan.
Turks first went to fight in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, when a few joined the mujahideen, holy warriors, then fighting to end the Soviet occupation.
The number of Turks fighting in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region is believed to be relatively small, though a senior security official in northwest Pakistan said there had been an increase over the past year.
Reuters