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Officials Probe Turkish Links to al-Qaida

Posted on: Tuesday, 18 November 2003, 06:00 CST

For investigators, a notebook containing suicide bombing instructions in Turkish, found in a deserted al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan, was the first, solid evidence of a link between Turkish militant Islamic groups and the terrorist network.

Since the manual was found in late 2001, after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban, Turkish authorities have been on the trail of possible links between local extremist Islamic groups and al-Qaida. The suicide truck blasts at Istanbul synagogues have added urgency to the mission.

Twenty-four people, including the two drivers, died in Saturday's attacks, which were being probed by Turkish and Israeli experts. The twin suicide bombings have been claimed by Osama bin Laden's network, although the claims have yet to be authenticated.

"The ties are both broad and deep. Al-Qaida is known to have extensive relationships with every militant Islamic grouping in the world; whether in Turkey or elsewhere," said Ziad Abdelnour, an international terrorism expert.

Turkish TV reported that two Turks, including one who traveled several times to Iran for bomb training, have been identified as the drivers of the explosives-laden pickup trucks that exploded.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that DNA test results on the suspected drivers, which could establish identities or at least help establish ethnic backgrounds, were expected Tuesday.

Like Afghanistan, Turkey is predominantly Muslim but not Arab. Most Turks consider bin Laden a criminal, but a few hard-line Muslims support him. Muslim fighters from Turkey are known to have fought in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.

Turkey, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East and NATO's sole Muslim member, has come under severe criticism from Iran and its Arab neighbors, Iraq and Syria, for developing close military ties with Israel since 1990s.

Turkey has long said its military cooperation with Israel was not aimed against a third country, but that has hardly convinced extremists in the Middle East.

In return, Turkey has accused Iran of fueling radical Islamic groups in Turkey and Syria of harboring Kurdish rebels, including rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan until four years ago.

"Turkey's friendship with Israel and the United States always makes it vulnerable to terrorist attacks," said Nihat Ali Ozcan, a Turkish terrorism expert.

The handwritten notes, found in the Darunta training camp near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, apparently were taken during a class and include a section on how someone on a motorcycle can assassinate a person in a car as well as details of how to carry out suicide bombings, Turkish media have reported.

"Turkish leaders very much underestimate what their local groups along with al-Qaida backing and support can do," said Abdelnour. "The attacks happened in Turkey because al-Qaida and their local allies identified a weakness in security out there and they jumped on the opportunity."

An outlawed Turkish radical Islamic group called the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front, or IBDA-C, also claimed responsibility for the synagogue bombings, but Turkish authorities disputed the claim, saying the attack was too sophisticated to be carried out by that local group.

The Raiders group, which is extremely anti-Semitic and anti-Christian, has been active since the mid-70s. It has become extremely violent in the past decade staging bloody attacks in big cities and assassinating pro-secular intellectuals with handmade bombs.

"If we have weaknesses in our intelligence, we have to review these," Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, told reporters after a Cabinet meeting of the Islamic-rooted government.

Cicek said several countries provided refuge to Turkey's "bloody terrorists" but he refused to name them.

Domestic terrorism in Turkey has spanned decades. Kurdish and leftist militants have carried out numerous suicide bombings in big cities.

For more than a decade, Islamic militants belonging to Hezbollah also terrorized Kurds in southeastern Turkey. Police unearthed scores of bodies buried underneath dungeons and torture cells of Hezbollah, which is not linked to the Lebanon-based guerrilla group of the same name.

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