Posted on 11/18/2003 10:59:43 AM PST by veronica
Turkish investigators are reportedly close to uncovering the full story behind the terror bombings of two Istanbul synagogues on Saturday morning in which 25 people were killed and over 300 wounded.
Their probe has thus far revealed that the World Islamic Jihad was behind the attack. The bombings were apparently carried out in cooperation with Al-Qaida and other terror organizations.
It became clear on Tuesday that the terror cell that
carried out the attack was primarily made up of members of one family. The two suicide bombers were cousins and the brother of one of the bombers headed the planning and execution of the attack. The brother fled to Syria immediately following the Saturday morning attack.
Turkish government figures on Tuesday accused Syrians not connected with the ruling regime of assisting the Istanbul terrorists in carrying out their double attack.
The investigation has also revealed that all four individuals involved in the planning and execution of the suicide bombings came from the city of Bingul in southeast Turkey.
All four were considered extremist Al-Qaida activists. They trained in Afghanistan and Iran and fought in Chechnya and in the Balkans. They were also previously active in Muslim organizations made illegal by Turkish authorities.
Turkish intelligence authorities and police said Monday that they had identified at least one of the suicide bombers from the attacks.
The suspected bomber is Azad Ekinci, from southeast Turkey, whose older brother has been called in by Istanbul police to provide a DNA sample.
The license plate on the vehicle that blew up outside the Beit Yisrael synagogue in Shishli was registered to the older brother.
Meanwhile, six Jewish victims of the attacks, including a young girl, were laid to rest Tuesday.
The six were named as eight-year-old Anita Rubinstein and her grandmother Anna, 85; Avraham Idinvarul, 40; Yoel Cohen Ulcher, the 20-year-old security guard at one of the two synagogues; Berta Usdawan, 34, who was killed along with her Muslim husband, Ahmed; and Yona Romano, 50, who died of a heart attack as a result of the bombing.
Their coffins were draped with Turkey's red-and-white flag emblazoned with a crescent and star, an honor normally given prominent citizens. Wreaths lined the walls of the cemetery in an affluent hilltop district of Istanbul.
Behind the area where the six coffins were displayed lay the victims' graves from a 1986 attack at Neve Shalom where gunmen opened fire during services, killing 22. The latest victims will be buried nearby.
An Arabic newspaper said Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida network, which operated broadly in Afghanistan until the militant Islamist Taliban administration was overthrown by U.S. forces in 2001, had claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul confirmed in a Tuesday press conference that the tracks of the Istanbul terrorists lead to Afghanistan and Al-Qaida.
"It has emerged that there is a link [in the Istanbul suicide attacks] with an organization in Afghanistan in terms of belief and understanding," Gul told reporters.
He gave no details.
"The emerging evidence demonstrates that the security services have been very successful in their work," he said. "A trail has been found and relationships have emerged."
Gul did not say whether Turkish security services, who are being helped by Israeli authorities, were moving towards any arrests.
New group? Merge of Hezb and AQ, or some other convergence in the interest of Iranian and Saudi foreign policy objectives?
Yet, just now, Peter Jennings reports that if Ariel Sharon was nicer to Yassir Arafat, the WIJ would lay down arms.
Just kidding...but ya know it's coming....
Makes economic sense...especially since the EU bureaucrats are green-lighting Iran on nuclear weapons development. Big money had to be exchanged for that one.
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