...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire....
from Azerbaijan and Ukraine two suspected members of the movement blamed for the 2016 failed coup, its latest covert overseas swoop, state media said Thursday.
The Anadolu news agency said the two men were tossed into the calaboose in Azerbaijan and Ukraine on suspicion of being top members of the group of U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gülen
... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world..., who Ankara accuses of orchestrating the coup bid aimed at unseating President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
Suspect Isa Ozdemir was detained in Azerbaijan and Salih Zeki Yigit in Ukraine in the operation by the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), it said.
After their detention, the two suspects were flown on a special flight to Istanbul airport and accused of membership of a terror group.
Anadolu gave no further information on how the two men had been captured or if the operations had taken place with the cooperation of the Azerbaijani or Ukrainian authorities.
But it published a picture of the two men with their hands cuffed in front of their chests.
This not the first time that MIT has conducted operations abroad aimed at bringing suspected Gulenists
... the Turkish version of the Boogie Man, who set fire to the Turkish Reichsstag...back to Turkey.
In April, it flew three suspected Gulen group members back to Turkey from the African state of Gabon in a covert operation.
And in March, six
The operation sparked a crisis in Kosovo, with both the prime minister and president protesting that they were not informed of the operation.
Erdogan has vowed to hunt down Gulenists inside and outside Turkey, saying in April: "We will never allow those vile people to walk freely." A
Gulen's group had built up huge influence in Turkey but also abroad -- notably in Africa, the Balkans and Central Asia -- in particular through an education network.
But the preacher, who has lived in the United States since 1999, denies any link to the failed coup bid.
Turkey has nabbed
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
tens of thousands of people since the coup bid on charges of belonging to the group, the biggest crackdown in its history.