TEHRAN – A Turkish prosecutor issued detention warrants for 120 suspectsfrom the military, the state-run Anadolu agency said on Thursday, thelatest in a long-running government crackdown launched after a failed coupattempt in 2016.link>link>link>link>

Police began simultaneous raids in 43 provinces to capture the suspects, 58of whom were believed to be users of the outlawed ByLock messaging app,Anadolu said, according to Reuters.

Turkey banned ByLock following the attempted putsch, saying followers ofthe Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen used it to communicate on the night ofthe coup, when rogue soldiers commandeered tanks and warplanes to attackparliament, killing more than 240 people.

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999,has denied involvement and condemned the coup.

More than 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial over alleged linksto Gulen, while 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from jobs inthe military, public and private sectors.

The government dismisses rights groups’ concerns about the crackdown,saying only such a purge could neutralize the threat represented by Gulen’snetwork, which it says infiltrated institutions such as the judiciary, armyand schools.