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SNIPPET: "ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkish police launched a nationwide crackdown on suspected militants linked to the al-Qaida terror network on Friday..." SNIPPET: "Those detained Friday's raids include a faculty member of the Yuzunci Yil University in the eastern city of Van, who is suspected of recruiting students at the campus and other people through the Internet and of sending them to Afghanistan for training, Anatolia reported, citing unnamed police officials. The suspect was identified by his initials M.E.Y. only. Anatolia said other suspects included some local leaders, university students, and people believed to be spreading al-Qaida propaganda."

ISTANBUL: Turkish anti-terror police on Tuesday detained 45 people on suspicion of belonging to the Al-Qaida extremist network and planning attacks, Anatolia news agency reported. The suspects, rounded up in simultaneous operations in eight districts of Istanbul, were being questioned by police, the report said. A court was to decide later whether they should be charged and jailed pending trial or released. In January, police raided 18 locations in southeast Turkey on intelligence that a local Al-Qaida cell was planning car bomb attacks. Four alleged militants and a policeman were then killed in a gunfight, and 17 suspects arrested. A...

Newly released police testimony of al-Qaeda member Louai Sakka found in case records has come the fore. In Sakka’s statements it is written that he is the one who provided two terrorists with a passport before they organized the September 11 attacks. Sakka's testimony also gives us some clues that Murat Yuce, the Turkish driver kidnapped in Iraq, was killed by a terrorist of Sakka's choice. There were also some Turkish people who took part in the execution of Yuce. The following was the structure of al-Qaeda, according to Sakka: Leader Osama bin Laden, His assistants: Mohammed Atef (Abu Hafs...

ANKARA, TURKEY: Prosecutors allege Osama bin Laden personally ordered a suspected al-Qaeda operative - charged with masterminding Istanbul suicide bombings and providing some USD 170,000 to Turkish militants - to carry out terrorist attacks in this pro-Western country. The prosecutor's office on Friday indicted Syrian national Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, accused of serving as a point man between the terrorist group and homegrown militants who killed 58 people in a series of suicide bombings in Istanbul in 2003. Al-Saqa, 32, had cosmetic surgery according to a medical report and flew beneath the radar for many years by using an...

A Turkish court on Thursday charged a Syrian national suspected of plotting to slam speedboats packed with explosives into cruise ships loaded with Israeli tourists, lawyers and police said. According to The AP, defense lawyer Ilhami Sayan said the suspect, identified in the Turkish media as Lu'ai Sakra, was charged with membership in an "illegal organization." He was arrested earlier this month. Police said Sakra was linked to al-Qaeda. "I have no regrets," Sakra shouted to journalists as he was led into the courthouse. "I was going to attack Israeli ships. If they come, my friends will attack them." "I...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police have detained a suspected al Qaeda militant from Syria who they believe was organizing an attack on Israeli targets in Turkey, security sources said on Wednesday. The suspect, believed to be the top figure in Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in Turkey, was apprehended in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Sunday as he attempted to board a plane for Istanbul, the sources said. The suspected militant, identified as Syrian national "Luia Sakra," was due to appear in an Istanbul court on Thursday, courthouse sources said. Judges on Wednesday ordered the arrest of another...

A suspected Syrian al-Qaida terrorist appeared before a Turkish court Thursday to face charges, and shouted to journalists from a courthouse window that he was planning to attack Israeli cruise ships coming to Turkey. "I have no regrets. I was going to attack Israeli ships. If they come, my friends will attack them," the man shouted. The semiofficial Anatolia news agency identified him only by the initials L.S. "I had prepared a ton of explosives," he said in a barely audible voice. The man also shouted "Allah Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," before officials pulled him back and closed...

ISTANBUL (AFP) - Turkish police have detained 10 people suspected of links to the Al-Qaeda extremist network and of plotting attacks on Israeli cruise ships in southern Turkey, security sources said. The suspects, one of them a Syrian, were detained several days ago in the Mediterranean province of Antalya, home to some of Turkey's most popular resorts, which attract millions of foreign tourists each year, said the sources, who requested anonymity. They were believed to be planning to attack Israeli cruise ships on behalf of Al-Qaeda, they said. Israel's counter-terrorism unit Monday warned Israeli holidaymakers to avoid a strip of...

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish police detained a Syrian who is believed to have been a go-between for al-Qaida and a Turkish cell that carried out deadly 2003 bombings in Istanbul and said Wednesday they are pursuing other militants. Turkish media said the Syrian was one of 10 people detained who were plotting to attack Israeli cruise ships docking at vacation resorts on the Mediterranean coast, but police later denied the reports. Israel on Monday urged its citizens not to visit beach resorts on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey and five cruise liners carrying some 5,000 people were diverted from Turkey...

The Turkish political weekly Tempo, along with some major Turkish daily newspapers including Milliyet,Aksam and Cumhuriyet, reported that the Islamist Turkish terrorist organization Great East Islamic Raiders Front (IBDA-C) [1] has begun publishing a new weekly, Kaide ("Al-Qaeda" in Turkish) which openly praises its namesake and idolizes Osama bin Laden. Kaide, which looks like an Al-Qaeda bulletin and includes all Al-Qaeda announcements, is published legally in Istanbul and sold at newsstands across Turkey. It is worth noting that according to Aksam, [2] Kaide is distributed by Yay-Sat, which is Turkey’s largest magazine-newspaper marketing and distribution network. Yay-Sat is owned by...

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish police shot dead a suspected suicide bomber near Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's office in Ankara on Friday. Turkish television showed live footage of police shooting at the man, said to be around 35 years old, in a street in the leafy central district of the capital. A Reuters correspondent saw the man lying dead in a pool of blood. Witnesses said the suspected bomber had been unable to detonate his explosives. The incident revived memories of four devastating suicide bomb attacks in Turkey's largest city Istanbul in November 2003. More than 60 people were killed in...

Turkey's Main Synagogue Reopens Tue Oct 12, 2:43 AM ET Middle East - AP By JAMES C. HELICKE, Associated Press Writer ISTANBUL, Turkey - Hundreds of Turkish Jews chanted hymns and a religious leader blew a ram's horn during the reopening of this predominantly Muslim country's main synagogue nearly a year after a suicide bombing. Chief Rabbi Isak Haleva marked the reopening Monday by carrying a Torah scroll into the Neve Shalom synagogue, one of two synagogues bombed in a string of November 2003 suicide attacks that killed more than 60 people in Istanbul. The attacks were blamed on al-Qaida....

Turkey al-Qaida Leader Said Killed in Iraq Fri Sep 10, 2:52 PM ET By JAMES C. HELICKE, Associated Press Writer ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish television broadcast on Friday a video from militants saying that the suspected leader of a Turkish al-Qaida cell blamed for suicide bombings in Istanbul was killed by U.S. airstrikes in Iraq (news - web sites). The video showed a body of a bearded man with a bloody face said to be that of Habib Akdas. A man, apparently a Turkish militant, was heard in the video saying Akdas was killed in a bombing raid this week...

Simultaneous explosions at two hotels in Istanbul have killed two people and injured 11. Turkish police are treating the blasts as terrorist attacks. Two more bombs exploded at a gas storage complex in an outlying area of the city, causing damage but no casualties. All explosions were preceded by telephone tip-offs. A group claiming links to al Qaeda has taken responsibility for the attacks.

CIA tipped off Turkey over al-Qaeda plan to attack NATO ANKARA: Turkey received a tip-off from the CIA over an alleged al-Qaeda plan to attack the June 28-29 NATO summit in Istanbul, to be attended by US President George W Bush, ahead of the arrest of suspected militants this month, the Milliyet newspaper reported Wednesday. The CIA reportedly told Turkish authorities that the al-Qaeda network was planning a "large-scale" attack during the summit and that explosives were dispatched to Istanbul from northern Iraq, Milliyet said, without citing a source. A police spokesman contacted by AFP declined to comment. The tip-off...

JERUSALEM - Israel's chief intelligence agency, the Mossad, is now working with Turkey to track down al Qaeda agents in the region. The extraordinary alliance between security officials in Muslim Turkey and the Jewish state shows how seriously the world's intelligence agencies are taking the continuing threat from Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s terror network. Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, confirmed the ties to Mossad in a recent interview with Israeli TV. Erdogan admitted Turkey had misread the al Qaeda threat before homicide bombers struck twice in Istanbul last November. "That's the nature of terrorism," he said....

<p>January 9, 2004 -- JERUSALEM - Israel's chief intelligence agency, the Mossad, is now working with Turkey to track down al Qaeda agents in the region. The extraordinary alliance between security officials in Muslim Turkey and the Jewish state shows how seriously the world's intelligence agencies are taking the continuing threat from Osama bin Laden's terror network.</p>

The Turkish al-Qaida cell that was responsible for twin suicide bombings against two synagogues, the British consulate and the HSBC in Istanbul, had planned to bomb an Israeli passenger ship which frequently sails between Israel and Turkey. Turkey's Milliyet newspaper reported Saturday that the Islamic terror group had originally intended to hit an Israeli ship, but changed its targets when the Israeli vessel deviated from its normal routine en route to dock at Turkey's Mediterranean port of Alanya. No reasonw as given for the route deviation. Harun Ilhan, a Turkish terrorist linked to Osama bin Laden and now under arrest,...

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Police arrests have dismantled an al-Qaida-linked cell believed to have carried out the Istanbul bombings that killed 62 people last month, a top official said Friday, but added that several leading members were at large abroad. A Turkish court charged nine more suspects Friday, including an alleged top member of the cell, with involvement in the bombings. In total, 44 people have been charged in last month's attacks. Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler told a news conference that authorities had captured most of the alleged militants involved in the attacks, which targeted two synagogues, a London-based bank and...

<p>Osama bin Laden proposed attacking a Turkish military base used by the United States, but militants stymied by tight security bombed civilian targets instead, killing Muslims and upsetting al-Qaida leaders, Turkish officials told The Associated Press.</p> <p>The information came from interrogations of a top suspect in last month's deadly bombings in Istanbul that authorities believe were carried out by Turkish militants trained by al-Qaida in Afghanistan, according to the officials.</p>