Dutch Arrest Alleged Kurdish Rebels
By TOBY STERLING
AP Online
Nov 13, 2004
A nationwide anti-terrorism operation netted 38 suspected members of
a Kurdish rebel group Friday, including “militant trainees” being
prepared at a rural campground for fighting in Turkey and Armenia,
officials said.
The detainees are all alleged members of the former Kurdistan Workers’
Party, or PKK, a rebel group which now calls itself KONGRA-GEL and is
branded as terrorist by the United States and the European Union. The
group seeks to carve out an independent Kurdish state in the mountains
of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
More than 200 police were involved in the second major operation
in the Netherlands in a week, after special forces used tear
gas to end a standoff with alleged Islamic radicals in The Hague
Wednesday. Prosecutors said the two operations were unrelated.
Nine arrests were made Friday in raids in The Hague, Rotterdam,
Eindhoven, Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, and the town of Capelle aan
den Ijssel.
Most of the arrests came in a sweep of an alleged paramilitary training
camp near Boxtel. Police seized night vision goggles, packages of
clothing intended to be sent abroad, instruction materials, passports
and identity cards, prosecutors said.
“More than 20 people were being trained for armed conflict
… including terrorist attacks” a statement by prosecutors
said. “Trainees were taught special war tactics.”
There were also indications that “a number of the trainees were
destined for Armenia,” it said.
Other detainees allegedly arranged money transfers, passports and
passed along information to PKK members in Turkey and Armenia,
prosecutors said.
The detainees, whose names were not released, included 33 men and
five women.
Prosecution spokesman Wim de Bruin said the group had been under
observation for several months and that “the course was nearly
finished.”
“We wanted to prevent the group from leaving the country and putting
to use the knowledge they had gained,” he said.
Boxtel’s mayor, Jan van Homelen, said the suspects were PKK members.
The PKK, which recently renamed itself KONGRA-GEL, ended a five-year
unilateral cease-fire in June and has carried out a number of attacks
recently, most in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.
It has been on Europe’s list of terrorist organizations since
April. Dutch prosecutors said those arrested Friday will likely be
charged as members.
“Apparently there’s been a training center there for a long time,
and that’s why it was decided to step in,” Van Homelen said on
national television.
Van Homelen said as far as he knew, the suspects did not use weapons or
explosives in their training, which he described as “more theoretical.”
Prosecutors said the suspects said they were Kurdish but were
considered Turkish nationals by the Dutch state.
On Monday, The Hague’s district court blocked the extradition of
alleged PKK leader Nuriye Kesbir to Turkey for her suspected role
in a series of bombings in the 1990s. The Justice Ministry said it
would appeal the decision.