Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with the head of the country’s armed forces today, a week after the military threatened to intervene in an ongoing presidential election if it thought secularism was in danger.

Two key suspects in the Istanbul suicide bombings, in which 61 people died, took instructions from Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man, newspapers reported today.

Turkey’s Cabinet has agreed to host tens of thousands of US combat troops for a possible Iraq war, in a crucial boost to American plans of a two-front attack to surround and divide the forces of Saddam Hussein.