Free Republic

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 Syrian was charged Friday with masterminding suicide bombings that killed 58 people in Istanbul, and prosecutors claimed that Osama bin Laden personally ordered him to carry out terror attacks in this pro-Western country. Al-Saqa testified that he sent $50,000 to the bombers with a courier after discussing it with al-Zarqawi. Al-Saqa has already been sentenced in absentia by Jordan, along with al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, for a failed plot to attack Americans and Israelis in Jordan with poison gas during millennium celebrations. He was captured in Turkey in August after an alleged failed plot to attack...

Alleged al-Qaida Operative Wanted for Bombings in Turkey Said to Elude Officials by Faking Death ISTANBUL, Turkey - An alleged al-Qaida operative accused of serving as a key link between the group's leaders and suicide bombers hid his tracks so well that even fellow militants thought he was dead. Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, wanted by Turkey for 2003 bombings in Istanbul that killed 58 people, is said to have eluded intelligence services by using an array of fake IDs, employing aliases even with his al-Qaida contacts and finally faking his death in Fallujah, Iraq, in late 2004. The Syrian...

An alleged al-Qaeda operative accused of serving as a key link between the group's leaders and suicide bombers hid his tracks so well that even fellow militants thought he was dead. Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, wanted by Turkey for 2003 bombings in Istanbul that killed 58 people, is said to have eluded intelligence services by using an array of fake IDs, employing aliases even with his al-Qaeda contacts and finally faking his death in Fallujah, Iraq, in late 2004. The Syrian radical didn't surface until last August, when an accidental explosion forced him to flee his safehouse in the...