John Bacon, and Jane Onyanga-Omara

USA TODAY

Turkish authorities arrested four men and seized 24 suicide belts and 30 pounds of explosives Thursday in a raid they said smashed a "sensational" terrorist plot.

The crackdown came on the same day CIA Director Mike Pompeo arrived in Turkey for talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish security officials.

The terror suspects were taking orders from "some senior group members operating in conflict zones in Syria," according to a statement from the governor's office in Gaziantep province, which borders war-torn Syria. The state-run Anadolu News Agency said several detonating mechanisms and other weapons were also seized during the operation in the province bordering Syria.

Last week, more than 800 people were detained in a crackdown on Islamic State operations across the nation. Turkey has been conducting Operation Euphrates Shield since August, an attempt to improve security and eliminate the terror threat along Turkey’s border with Syria.

Turkey has suffered a series of deadly terror attacks in the last year, including a New Year's Eve attack in an Istanbul nightclub that left 39 people dead and scores wounded.

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Pompeo met with Erdogan and Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, at the presidential complex in Ankara, Anadolu reported. Pompeo’s visit marked his first foreign trip since taking charge of the agency and came two days after Erdogan spoke on the phone with President Trump.

The White House shed little light on the phone conversation, saying only that Turkey is considered a strategic ally against the Islamic State and that the two leaders shared a "commitment to combating terrorism in all its forms."



Turkish officials say that chat included discussion of U.S.-support for Kurdish fighters in Syria, a group the Turkish government considers to be terrorists.

U.S.-Turkish ties have been fraying in recent months as Erodgan pressed then-president Obama on the Kurdish issue while U.S. officials called out Erdogan for crackdowns on dissent and the media. Erdogan also has demanded extradition of U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey accuses of orchestrating a July coup attempt. Gulen denies any involvement.