Turkey ‘foils bomb attack on NATO summit’
Police arrested 16 men believed to belong to militant Muslim group Ansar al-Islam. They were detained on April 29 in the town of Bursa, 160 miles south of Istanbul.
The police also seized guns, explosives, bomb-making booklets and 4,000 compact discs featuring training instructions from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
The Anatolian state news agency said a further nine men had been held in Istanbul. However, a state prosecutor later released them, saying they had no proven links to Ansar al-Islam.
The organisation is a militant group from Kurdish northern Iraq, which is accused by Washington of being an ally of al-Qaida and a force behind attacks on US troops occupying Iraq.
Turkish security has been stepped up since four devastating suicide truck bomb attacks in Istanbul last November that killed 61 people. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attacks which targeted British and Jewish sites.
"After a successful operation, the organisation planning this attack has been destroyed. This is the result of a year-long operation," Bursa governor Oguz Kagan Koksal said in a statement carried by the state news agency. Mr Koksal said Ansar al-Islam had planned to carry out more attacks on US troops in Iraq after the June 28-29 NATO summit. NTV television reported some of those held had already taken part in the insurgency in Iraq.
Dozens of international leaders, including Mr Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac are due to attend the summit, where Iraq's future will feature high on the agenda.
A NATO spokeswoman said the alliance was not reconsidering its plan to hold the meeting in Istanbul.
"At the moment there is no consideration of that. The Turkish authorities are responsible for security and we have confidence in them," she said.
The governor of Istanbul, Muammer Guler, said the authorities in the city were taking every precaution against a possible terrorist attack before or during the NATO summit.
"There is no reason for concern about the meeting," Mr Guler said.
Turkish television showed pictures of timing devices, guns and explosive materials seized in Bursa.
The men arrested in Bursa had also been plotting an attack on a synagogue as well as a bank robbery to raise funds for their operations, Mr Koksal added.
He said the men had been found to hold fake identity cards and had also been involved in the manufacture of fake software, including PC games to raise money.
Since the November bombings, Istanbul Turkey's commercial hub and largest city has witnessed several other much smaller attacks.
The most serious of these targeted a Masonic lodge. A waiter and one of two suicide bombers were killed in the incident.
Turkey, the only Muslim member of NATO, is viewed as a prime target for militant Islamist groups due to its secular democracy and close ties with the United States and Israel.
