ANKARA, 2 December 2003 — Turkey said yesterday the suicide bombers responsible for last month’s carnage in Istanbul were linked to the Al-Qaeda network as police questioned a key suspect and 21 other Turks handed over by Syria. “According to current information, those who were involved in the incidents as suicide bombers and people who are related to them are seen as close to Al-Qaeda,” Deputy Prime Minister Abdullatif Sener told reporters.
Sixty-one people, including four bombers, were killed in the blasts, the worst attacks in recent history in mainly Muslim but strictly secular Turkey. Sener was speaking after a Cabinet meeting discussed the attacks, which have been claimed both by Al-Qaeda and a small Turkish radical group, the Islamist Great Eastern Raiders Front (IBDA-C).
Some of those detained are believed to have links with Azad Ekinci, who investigators suspect was a key planner of the November bombings. Ekinci has reportedly escaped Turkey and was not among the 22 expelled by Syria.
NTV television published a list of the names of those detained, saying they would probably soon be transferred to Istanbul for further questioning. The majority of the suspects had been receiving a religious education in Syria, NTV said.
“Serious and disciplined work by our security forces brought results,” Sener told reporters. But he declined to give any details of the Syria operation.
Press reports have said the bombers and their accomplices belonged to Al-Qaeda cells in Turkey, while officials have said they might have acted as “sub-contractors” for Osama Bin Laden’s network.
Investigators in the border province of Hatay questioned a man believed to be key to the attacks, his wife and 20 other Turks who were rounded up in Syria and extradited to Turkey on Sunday as part of the expanding investigation.
Hatay Governor Abdulkadir Sari said the 20 suspects apprehended along with the Tugluoglu couple were “Turkish nationals attending religious schools in Syria, some of whom are under 18,” the Anatolia news agency reported.
Turkish authorities have so far formally arrested and charged 21 people in connection with the blasts. Most have been accused of aiding and abetting illegal organizations.
The most serious charge — attempting to overthrow the constitutional order, which carries a life term in prison - was brought on Saturday against Yusuf Polat, who allegedly confessed to having gathered intelligence and given the go-ahead for one of the synagogue blasts.
Hurriyet newspaper said Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul had personally pressed Damascus to hand over the suspects in an appeal that recalled Ankara’s bid to have Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan expelled from Syria in 1998. But in 1998 Damascus acted only after Turkey threatened war. This time, analysts said, Syria and Turkey worked closely together, building on a thaw that began with Ocalan’s expulsion.
