ISTANBUL, 17 November 2003 — Suicide bombers driving two vans loaded with explosives carried out the devastating attacks on two Istanbul synagogues which killed at least 23 people, a diplomatic source said yesterday.
Turkish media said each vehicle was packed with 400 kg (850 pounds) of explosives and two corpses had been found with wires attached to them suggesting they might be suicide bombers.
Turkey and Israel, vowing not to let Saturday’s attacks damage rare close ties between the Jewish state and a Muslim nation, blamed what they called international terrorists.
Working side-by-side and inch-by-inch, Turkish police and Israeli Mossad secret service teams combed through the wreckage outside the two synagogues. “The Turkish probe has found that the two separate attacks were suicide bombings,” a diplomatic source said.
The Arab newspaper Al-Qods Al-Arabi said late yesterday it received a claim of responsibility from the Al-Qaeda terror network for the synagogue bombings
Police also released four people briefly detained as suspects. The state-run Anatolian agency quoted security sources as saying the bombs were made of ammonium sulfate, nitrate and petrol, all easily available, mixed in plastic containers.
“Two dismembered corpses have been discovered with wires wrapped around parts of their body,” Milliyet newspaper said.
Officials said international groups — possibly including Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda — might be behind the blasts, which killed Jews attending Sabbath prayers and Muslim passersby.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan vowed to leave no stone unturned in bringing to justice those responsible for the attacks which injured more than 300 people and wrecked buildings and cars over wide areas around the synagogues.
More than 70 victims remained in hospital. “Our determination to fight terrorism in the international arena continues because this event has international links,” Erdogan said. “We must solve this in cooperation with other states.” Officials dismissed a claim from a radical Turkish Islamist group that it was behind the attacks. The diplomatic source echoed this: “The consensus is that this is a group on a far greater scale, operating beyond Turkey’s borders.”
