ANKARA (AFP) -The Turkish government will remove 73 Islamic preachers for links to the group Hizbullah, which it accuses of kidnapping and murdering 56 people.
"Plans are being carried out to remove 73 preachers who have ties to the (Hizbullah) terrorist organization," Anatolia reported, quoting Mehmet Nuri Yilmaz, head of Turkey's official religious affairs directory. Yilmaz made the comments at a meeting in Alanya, in southern Turkey, the agency said.
Turkish police carrying out a nationwide crackdown on Hizbullah have dug up the bodies of 56 people they believe were killed by the group during a campaign of kidnapping and murder. Most of the victims were discovered in Ankara, Istanbul, and Diyarbakir, in southeastern Turkey. "Homicide constitutes the worst sin in Islam," said Yilmaz, "those who commit such a crime will be punished in the hereafter."
The crackdown was launched on January 17 after police killed the group's leader, Huseyin Velioglu, and captured two high-ranking commanders in an Istanbul shootout.
Turkish Hizbullah, which is not believed to be associated with the Lebanese group of the same name, was founded in the early 1980s with the initial aim of countering the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is fighting for self-rule in southeast Turkey. Analysts say it has taken root with the help of preachers in mosques in urban areas where its supporters are concentrated.
The government and the army have denied allegations, taken up by the opposition pro-Islamic Virtue Party, that the state had long turned a blind eye to Hizbullah in a bid to indirectly encourage its armed campaign against Kurdish Islamists.
