Turkey arrests 'foil bomb plot'

Two left-wing militants and an accomplice suspected of planning suicide bombings have been captured in Istanbul.

The three suspects were arrested last Saturday with small blocks of explosives wrapped in nylon bags that could have been tied to their bodies, police said according to the semi-official Anatolia news agency.

Two of them are reported to be members of the outlawed Marxist group, Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C).

Anatolia said police believe the militants were planning to carry out suicide bombings against government offices in the city but gave no other details.

The DHKP-C group admitted carrying out two suicide bomb attacks in Istanbul in September 2001 that killed three policemen and one Australian citizen and wounded 28 people, mostly police officers.

The illegal group, which aims to topple the government and replace it with a Marxist one, has carried out a series of other bombings since 2001.

Seventeen police officers were wounded in a bomb attack in Ankara last month which was blamed on the group.