Turkish police have detained two suspected members of the Islamic State extremist group believed to have been plotting suicide attacks in the capital Ankara on New Year's Eve.
The state prosecutor's office told media on December 30 that the two men were Turkish citizens and entered Turkey from Syria.
He said they were suspected of preparing an attack on Kizilay Square in the center of Ankara, where crowds usually gather to celebrate the New Year.
The two men were detained in a raid on a house in the low-income Mamak neighborhood of Ankara, where police also seized a suicide vest armed with a bomb, an explosive device that was fortified with ball bearings and metal sticks and placed inside a back-pack.
The police also seized bomb-making equipment.
A double suicide bombing blamed on Islamic State killed more than 100 people in Ankara in October.
Turkish authorities have over the past months cracked down on the group's so-called "sleeper cells" throughout the country.
