Authorities in northern Greece say eight Turkish military officers seeking asylum here after Turkey's failed coup attempt have been moved to a different police detention site for security reasons. Turkey's state-run news agency says the country's defense ministry has sacked at least 262 military court judges and prosecutors. Anadolu also says an investigation was launched Wednesday on all military judges and prosecutors as Turkish authorities continued with a crackdown on people suspected of backing a failed military coup, which the government has blamed on a U.S.-based cleric The state-run Anadolu news agency says Istanbul's Eyup district municipality is demolishing a hotel that was allegedly the meeting point of the plotters who planned Friday's failed coup. Amnesty International says authorities in Turkey are conducting a crackdown of exceptional proportions following the failed coup attempt over the weekend. Besides tens of thousands of public servants and teachers being dismissed, Amnesty said Wednesday the crackdown has extended to censoring media and journalists, including those critical of the government. The state-run Anadolu news agency reported the teachers are believed to have ties to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the government has accused of being behind the failed military coup last week. Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency reported the infantry captain and a lieutenant are suspected followers of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has been blamed for the failed uprising by some military units. The government has detained over 9,000 people and fired tens of thousands of teachers, police and university professors, accusing them of having links to the U.S.-based cleric it blames for Turkey's failed military coup. Access to the Wikileaks website in Turkey has been blocked after the group announced, following a failed coup by Turkish military units, that it would release a trove of documents on the country's power structure. Days after a failed coup attempt in Turkey, the country's jets carried out cross-border strikes against Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq, killing some 20 alleged militants, state media reported Wednesday. The Turkish military has been regularly hitting suspected PKK hideouts and position in Iraq since last year, but Wednesday's strikes were the first since the July 15 botched takeover attempt by a faction within the armed forces, in which several F-16 pilots were involved. [...] tens of thousands of civil service employees, including teachers and police, have also been fired, accused of ties to the plot or suspected of links to a U.S.-based cleric whom authorities accuse of being the behind the plot. Officials on Wednesday raised the death toll from the violence surrounding the coup attempt to 240 government supporters.
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