ANKARA, 4 May 2004 — Turkish anti-terrorist police have detained several militants with links to the Al-Qaeda terrorist network who were preparing to carry out bomb attacks against a NATO summit in Istanbul next month, officials and news reports said yesterday.

Sixteen suspects were detained in the northwestern city of Bursa after police tracked them for a year as they hatched plans to attack the Istanbul summit but also a nearby synagogue, Bursa Governor Oguz Kagan Koksal told a press conference in the city.

He said they belonged to the northern Iraq-based Ansar Al-Islam, which is believed to be linked to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda terror network.

“The organization has been neutralized in a successful operation while in the stage of planning attacks,” Koksal was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as saying.

Nine other men were also taken into custody in another operation in Istanbul, but were released yesterday after being questioned by a court prosecutor and found to have no ties to Ansar Al-Islam, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The suspects caught in Bursa — all of them Turkish nationals — were due to appear in court later yesterday to be charged. Among them was also a leader of the group, identified only as Alpaslan T., Koksal said.

The operation came as part of Turkey’s efforts to ensure watertight security at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, which is scheduled for June 28-29 and will be attended by dozens of world leaders, including US President George W. Bush.

In Brussels, a NATO spokesman said they had no doubt that Turkey would organize a secure summit, which will be the first for the alliance’s newcomers — Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

“The Turkish authorities are responsible for security and we have confidence in them,” the spokesman said, adding that a change of venue was “not under consideration”.

Gov. Koksal said that besides planning to attack the NATO summit, the detainees had also carried out reconnaissance work with the aim of attacking a synagogue in the nearby town of Osmangazi and of robbing a bank to finance their organization.

He said the suspects were planning to go to Iraq to fight US forces there after carrying out a “sensational” attack in Turkey.

A search at the suspects’ homes and offices netted homemade pipe bombs, materials used for making explosives, CDs featuring Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda militants in training and subversive documents, Koksal said.

Fears of terrorist attacks in Istanbul have been heightened since four suicide bombings in the city last November.

More than 60 people were killed and hundreds injured in the carnage, which officials blamed on local extremists with links to Al-Qaeda.

Sixty-nine people have so far been charged over the attacks and are expected to appear in court in late May. Officials have said several ringleaders managed to flee abroad after the bombings.

Ansar Al-Islam, founded in December 2001 by the Norway-based Iraqi Kurd Mullah Krekar, used to control a small enclave in northeastern Iraq before it was crushed by US forces in late March last year. It then had about 700 to 900 members.

On March 22, the United States added Ansar Al-Islam to its official list of terrorist organizations, saying it was linked to Al-Qaeda and has mounted attacks against US-led forces in Iraq.