ISTANBUL, 24 December 2003 — Police in Istanbul have seized enough bomb-making materials to build five truck bombs similar to those which devastated the city last month, and detained 20 suspects in connection with their probe into last month’s suicide bombings in the city, the media reported yesterday.
The materials, which included potassium nitrate fertilizer, explosives and electronic detonators, were seized in the attic of an Istanbul house belonging to Mehmet Kus, a relative of one of the suspected masterminds of the November bombings, the Sabah newspaper said.
Police officials contacted by AFP declined to comment, while Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler said the authorities would make a statement on the issue within a few days. The daily said the amount of explosives seized was enough to make five bombs similar to those that exploded outside two synagogues in the heart of Istanbul on Nov. 15 and at outside the British consulate and the British HSBC bank five days later. Nitrate-based bombs were used in those attacks.
Meanwhile Anatolia news agency said Kus, the owner of the house, had been arrested and transferred to a state security court. The bust followed a confession by Osman Eken, who was arrested following the suicide attacks on Nov. 15 and 20, which killed a total of 62 people, including the four suicide bombers, and injured hundreds.
The Turkish authorities have blamed the blasts on local Islamists linked to the Al-Qaeda network of Osama Bin Laden, who allegedly gave a personal go-ahead to the carnage. Eken told police the explosives were destined for new attacks that were postponed because of the security clampdown. “The explosives were unloaded from the trucks... We decided that everybody should hide and go underground until the (security) operations are over,” Sabah quoted Eken as telling police.
The NTV news channel reported on its website that police rounded up a total of 20 people in Istanbul and the central city of Konya following Eken’s confessions. Among the eight detained in Konya was a leading member of Al-Qaeda-linked groupings in Turkey, named as Harun Ilhan.
