Turkey needs international help in manhunt

Turkey's prime minister pleaded yesterday for international help in tracking down the suspected foreign masterminds of Istanbul's suicide bombings.

With domestic investigations into the attacks zeroing in on the remote town of Bingol, where Turkish media say the bombers came from, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said only an international effort could bring the plot leaders to justice.

Expressing shame that the four suicide truck bombers in the attacks on two Istanbul synagogues as well as the British consulate and a branch of London-based banking giant HSBC were Turkish, Mr Erdogan said the attackers had global connections.

"All of our security forces at this point are looking into this international connection," he told BBC Television.

"Terrorism is a phenomenon which has international aspects and we must establish a joint platform to fight against it."

He called for international cooperation among intelligence organisations in the manhunt.

Groups apparently linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network have claimed responsibility for synagogue attacks on November 15 that killed 25 people and Thursday's bombings against British targets which killed 30, but Mr Erdogan said an al Qaeda link had not yet been proved.

"Regarding al Qaeda, there are no definite results at this point yet," he said of the attacks, which injured 750 people.

"We have some evidence which indicates there are religious motives behind this, but is this an al Qaeda conglomerate function, or is this some other terrorist organisation? We are not sure at this point."

Residents in the remote southeastern town of Bingol said yesterday security forces had seized computers believed to have been used in planning Istanbul's suicide bomb attacks from internet cafes owned by a brother of one of the four suspects.

The residents also said DNA tests had been carried out on relatives of the three other suspected suicide bombers who also all came from Bingol. The tests were used to confirm descriptions of the bombers by witnesses and figures captured on security cameras in the synagogue attacks.

Police have set up roadblocks into Bingol, a town of 200,000, long an area of Islamic fundamentalism close to the Iran and Syrian borders.

Turkish media said police had so far detained 18 people and investigations were focused on Bingol. The reports said the four suspected bombers had travelled extensively abroad, including to al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.

Muslim prayer leaders in Turkey will use a sermon this week marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan to condemn terrorism, Anatolian news agency reported.

Turkey's religious affairs directorate revised the planned reading for the Eid al-Fitr feast in the light of the attacks.

"Terror, violence and anarchy have no connection whatsoever with Islam," the agency quoted the sermon as saying. "Our religion clearly outlaws any kind of anarchy, sedition, enmity, cruelty, torture, terror or violence."