ISTANBUL: Turkey ordered the detention of 68 suspects, including dozens ofcolonels, in an operation targeting alleged supporters of the US-basedIslamic cleric whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating an attempted coup twoyears ago, state media said on Monday.

Nineteen serving officers were among those facing detention in an operationfocused on the military’s land forces across 19 provinces including thecapital Ankara, state-run *Anadolu* news agency said.

It cited sources in the Ankara chief prosecutor’s office as saying thesuspects were found to have been in contact by landline phone withoperatives of the preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara says was behind thefailed putsch on July 15, 2016.

Those facing arrest include 22 colonels and 27 lieutenant colonels, and 19people have so far been detained, *Anadolu* said.

Turkey has detained 160,000 people and dismissed nearly the same number ofcivil servants since the putsch, the UN human rights office said in March.Of that number, more than 50,000 have been formally charged and kept injail during their trials.

Critics of President Tayyip Erdogan accuse him of using the failed putschas a pretext to quash dissent. Turkey says the measures are necessary tocombat threats to national security.