More than a dozen retired military officers have been detained in Turkey in the latest stage of an investigation into an alleged 2003 coup plot.

Prosecutors had reportedly meant to detain nearly 90 former officers, until the chief prosecutor stepped in to limit the scale of the operation.

Dozens of officers have already been rounded up over the allegations, the BBC reported.

The "sledgehammer" plot supposedly involved staging bombings to undermine the government and justify a coup.

Many of those arrested in February have since been released.

It is one of two major ongoing investigations into alleged coup plots. Scores of people are already on trial in relation to the other - the reported Ergenekon conspiracy - in which military figures and staunch secularists allegedly planned to foment unrest, leading to a coup.

Turkey's military has overthrown or forced the resignation of four governments since 1960 - most recently in 1997 - though it now insists that coups are a thing of the past.

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