ANKARA, Turkey, Nov. 29 — Police arrested a man suspected of ordering one of four deadly suicide bombings earlier this month, officials said Saturday. THE MAN was brought to the wrecked Beth Israel synagogue early Saturday, police spokesman Halil Yilmaz said. He said the man, whose identity was not released, made plans for the attack and ordered it.
The suicide truck bombings on the Beth Israel synagogue and another synagogue on Nov. 15, along with the Nov. 20 bombing of the British Consulate and a British bank, killed 61 people and injured 712. The four bombers were among the dead.
Yilmaz said the man was arrested after investigators received intelligence that he planned to flee Turkey using a fake ID and passport. He was arrested on Nov. 25 while trying to leave Turkey through a border crossing with Iran, Yilmaz said.
Earlier Saturday, NTV television showed a handcuffed, bearded man who appeared to be in his 20s, at the site of the wrecked Beth Israel synagogue speaking to an investigator.
New suicide bomber named; police conducting DNA tests
The man was identified as Habib Aktas, a Turk from the southeastern city of Mardin. Police refused to confirm the report.
SELCAN HACAOGLU
ISTANBUL - The Associated Press
Police were conducting DNA tests to confirm the identity of a suspected Islamic suicide bomber who detonated an explosives-laden pickup truck outside a British bank in Istanbul, a Turkish newspaper reported Friday.
The man was identified as Habib Aktas, a Turk from the southeastern city of Mardin, the Milliyet newspaper said, citing unidentified police sources. Police refused to confirm the report.
The brother of the suspected bomber, Arif Aktas, was detained and brought to Istanbul from Mardin for DNA tests and interrogation, the newspaper said. Aktas is believed to have detonated the bomb outside the offices of London-based HSBC Bank in Istanbul on Nov. 20.
Milliyet identified another suicide bomber who rammed an explosive-laden pickup truck into the British Consulate in a near-simultaneous attack as Feridun Ugurlu, a Turk believed to have fought with Islamic radicals in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
Police neither confirmed nor denied the Milliyet report identifying Ugurlu as the suicide bomber.
The attacks - which killed 61 people, including the four suicide bombers, and wounded 712 - came five days after two other suicide bombers detonated bombs outside two Istanbul synagogues. Police have identified those attackers as Gokhan Altuntas and Mesut Cabuk, both from the town of Bingol in the Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey.
Earlier reports speculated the HSBC bombing was carried out by Azad Ekinci, another Islamic militant from Bingol. But Ekinci's involvement in the attacks is yet to be confirmed.
A total of 20 people have been charged in the investigation. At least two of them were alleged members of Beyyiat el-Imam, a little-known group formed in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan whose name is Arabic for "Allegiance to the Imam," the daily newspaper Aksam reported Friday.
Police would not confirm that report.
Also Friday, private NTV television reported that police detained several other new suspects
Police said ammonium nitrate had been used in making the bombs. Ammonium nitrate, which is commonly used in fertilizer, can be turned into a powerful explosive when combined with fuel oil.
Western and Turkish officials say the attacks bore the hallmarks of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.
Authorities earlier had announced that 57 people, including the four bombers, were killed in the blasts. Police did not explain the discrepancy. Authorities have been struggling to identify body parts for days.
Police have raided several suspects' houses, confiscating two handguns and two single-shot "pen guns," along with four shotguns and sniper's binoculars. They also seized bomb-making material, tear gas, ski masks, 20 wireless radios, cameras and documents in Arabic, Istanbul's deputy police chief Halil Yilmaz said.
Turkish officials have said all four suicide bombers were Turkish nationals, militants with international contacts. Newspapers have said some of them could have been trained in al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan or Iran.
Police also are investigating possible links between the bombers and Hezbollah, an illegal Islamic group that is different from the Lebanon-based group with the same name. Two of the confirmed suicide bombers were from the southeastern town of Bingol. Another suspected bomber Ekinci was also from Bingol but it was not clear if he had any role in the attacks.
Milliyet on Friday identified a new suspect, Aktas, from the southeastern city of Mardin, as the bomber who might have attacked the HSBC building - the same target said to be attacked by Ekinci.
Police were trying to clarify the identity of the bombing in that attack through DNA tests.
Two of the confirmed bombers and two other suspected bombers were from Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeastern region - the hotbed of Hezbollah activity.
PAMELA SAMPSON
DURU - The Associated Press
His path to radicalism began four years before he blew himself up in front of a synagogue, part of what appeared to be a coordinated chain of deadly suicide attacks.
It ended in a stark graveyard in his impoverished hometown of Bingol, where investigators, family and friends searched for explanations as to why Gokhan Elaltuntas and at least one other native son became militants.
While devoutly Muslim, many in this town in Turkey's overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast harshly condemned the attacks after learning that two of the four suicide bombers grew up in Bingol and a third was from the area.
"As long as this is not solved, humanity is in danger," said Bingol Mayor Feyzullah Karaaslan.
A childhood friend of Elaltuntas' said he was shocked to learn of his involvement. "We went partridge hunting together," said the friend, who asked not to be identified. "I still cannot believe how such a quiet person could have been involved in an incident like this."
Still, the area has a history of conflict.
An illegal Islamic group, Hezbollah, has a presence in Bingol, a town of 100,000 people where crowds of jobless men kill time at cafes sipping tea. Unemployment is around 60 percent, and a 15-year-long armed struggle by autonomy-seeking Kurdish terrorists against Turkish troops has all but destroyed the farming sector.
Bingol was where Elaltuntas met two Islamic extremists, Azad Ekinci and Mesut Cabuk, about four years ago while in his late teens, the childhood friend said. The friend said the three opened an Internet cafe on the town's main street.
The cafe is now a focal point of the investigation into the twin attacks on Istanbul's Neve Shalom and Beth Israel synagogues on Nov. 15. Police have examined the databases of 10 hard drives in the cafe, the daily Aksam newspaper said Thursday. Nowadays, the cafe is packed with children feverishly playing computer games.
Another childhood friend, who also asked not to be identified, said Elaltuntas was withdrawn and religious - but not a radical until he met Cabuk and Ekinci. The three wore beards, common among fundamentalists but conspicuous in this moderate Muslim country, where many men are clean-shaven.
The 22-year-old Elaltuntas was said to be preparing to get married at the time of the attacks.
After DNA tests confirmed Elaltuntas was the driver of the truck that exploded outside the Neve Shalom synagogue, his remains were brought to Bingol and buried in the family cemetery. About 25 friends and relatives attended the funeral.
His parents told a Turkish newspaper they were ashamed and angry at their son.
"I went to his grave and yelled at him," the daily Sabah quoted Elaltuntas' mother, Sabite, as saying. "I yelled at him that I would never forgive him. How could he do this? Who deceived him? We were going to have a wedding ceremony for him next week."
"I would rather see my son die a thousand times than see him die like this," the father, Sefik, told the newspaper.
The attack by Elaltuntas occurred within minutes of an identical strike against the Beth Israel synagogue. Police identified Elaltuntas' friend Cabuk as driver of the truck in that attack.
Turkish officials say they believe Elaltuntas and Cabuk were backed by international assistance, possibly from al-Qaeda. The bombers also may have traveled to Pakistan and fought in Chechnya and Bosnia, as many radical Islamic Turks have done.
Ekinci - one of the extremists who allegedly influenced Elaltuntas as a teenager - was named in the news media as having carried out the suicide truck bombing on Nov. 20 against the London-based HSBC bank. Police did not confirm that Ekinci was involved but said all the attackers were Turks.
A fourth bomber, identified by newspapers as Feridun Ugurlu of western Turkey, allegedly launched the nearly simultaneous attack that day against the British Consulate.
Turkey's justice minister said the bombers had ties to al-Qaida.
"Their foreign connections have been found out. They have been to al-Qaida. There are pro-Chechens among them," Justice Minister Cemil Cicek was quoted as saying by the newspaper Milliyet on Thursday. Cicek did not elaborate.
Authorities have not named any local Islamic group that could have been given support by al-Qaida to launch the attacks. A small Turkish group, Great Eastern Raiders Front, or IBDA-C, had claimed credit for the attacks jointly with al-Qaeda.
Reports speculated that Ekinci had connections with Turkey's Hezbollah, which is not linked to the Lebanon-based group of the same name. IBDA-C is also believed to have sympathizers in the Kurdish region.
A 30-year-old civil servant, who did not want to be named, said Ekinci traveled to Afghanistan with another Turk from Bingol.
"Azad traveled to Afghanistan ... in 1995 or 1996," he said. "When he came back he looked very Islamic, he wore Islamic clothes and had grown a beard. Whenever he spoke he was giving examples from the Quran," the civil servant said.
Bingol lawmaker Fevzi Berdibek, from the ruling Islamic-rooted government, said the town's reputation had been irreparably tarnished by the suicide bombings.
"International powers used people from Bingol as subcontractors," he said. "It is so unfortunate that now Bingol's name goes together with terrorism."
http://www.turkishdailynews.com/FrTDN/latest/for2.htm#f26
The Turks and their internal security forces do not play around.
Look for this piece of shit to sing like a canary.
Hehehe, I was thinking the exact same thing.
How do you say, "And that I do not forgive ..." in Turkish?
It's only a hunch, but I believe the Turks will be able to get some information out of this guy through interrogation.(/sarcasm)
I'm sure the Turkish special anti-terrorism police are going to read him his Miranda warning, and get his lawyer pronto before gently taking him to a comfy cell.
I would love to hear of al-Qaeda's Iran-based leadership (including bin Laden himself?) being taken out in such an operation, but the reason I'm cautious is because they're apparently being shuffled around to different IRGC military bases and being protected by Qods Force, the elite of the Iranian military. Any action against the al-Qaeda in Iran (which number in the hundreds even by conservative estimates) would require direct military action against the Islamic Republic, probably in conjunction with a popular revolt. We had one window to do that back in June (assuming the US had the logistical resources at the time to mount such a campaign, our troops aren't limitless), but we missed it.
As Michael Ledeen says, faster please.
