Turkey breaks up al Qaeda cell behind blasts

Turkish authorities have broken up the Istanbul cell behind last month's truck bombings and have confirmed its links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, the city's governor said yesterday.

The four blasts targeted two synagogues and British interests in Turkey's commercial capital, killing 61 people and wounding several hundred. It was one of the worst weeks of peacetime violence in modern Turkish history.

"The suicide attacks were carried out by elements trying to organise for al Qaeda in Turkey," governor Muammer Guler told a news conference in Istanbul, held to announce progress in the investigation.

"We can comfortably say that we have broken up the organisation's Istanbul activities," he said.

In the wake of the attacks, the United States and Britain warned against non-essential travel to Nato-ally Turkey. US President George W. Bush said Turkey had become a key battle front in the "war on terror".

The governor said 35 people had been charged so far in connection with the blasts.

The Anatolian state news agency later reported a further nine people had been charged by a state security court.

The charges included "attempting to change (Turkey's) constitutional order by armed force", "belonging to an illegal organisation" and "aiding and abetting an illegal organisation".

Police displayed five Kalashnikov rifles, pistols, walkie-talkies and eight sacks of RDX explosives seized in the course of the probe. More than six tonnes of chemical fertiliser were used in the four blasts, Guler said.

The first two attacks occurred on November 15 when suicide bombers targeted two synagogues in the city. Five days later, two more bombers struck at the British consulate and the Turkish headquarters of the HSBC bank. The majority of the dead were Muslim Turks, most of whom had been passing by at the time.

Turkish police launched a huge nationwide investigation into the blasts, detaining a total of 159 people across the country.

One of those sent to court yesterday, Harun Ilhan, was also taken to the site of the city's Neve Shalom synagogue to help police recreate what had happened.

Media reports said Ilhan had confessed to being a member of the al Qaeda network and said he had lived for a year in Afghanistan after evading military service in Turkey.