ISIS-related news out of Turkey today:
A Syrian man has been detained in Turkey after allegedly planning to attack the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, officials tell ABC News.
Muhammed Raghi Al Hardani, described by Turkish state-run TV as an ISIS militant, was arrested in the town of Kahramanmaras, about 100 miles north of the Syrian border.
The U.S. Consulate in Istanbul was closed last week due to an unspecified threat. Just yesterday, the U.S. Embassy in Ankara announced that they will be limiting consular services “due to a possible security threat against the U.S. embassy.”
On August 10, shots were fired at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul. In February 2013, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at an entrance to the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital Ankara.
The British consulate in Istanbul was hit by a bomb in November 2003, killing 32 and injuring hundreds.
I still remember Thomas Friedman’s December 2003 column whining that the U.S. consulate in Istanbul looked too fearsome and uninviting, with high walls and lots of security measures.