Al-Qaida 'responsible' for Turkey synagogue blasts

Turkish officials were investigating claims that the al-Qaida terrorist network was responsible for the car bombings that devastated two Istanbul synagogues and killed 23 people, the prime minister said.

Two London-based Arabic-language newspapers received separate statements yesterday claiming that Osama bin Laden’s group was responsible for the bombings, which Turkish officials said were likely the work of suicide bombers who set off pickup trucks laden with explosives.

There was no way to independently confirm the authenticity of the claims.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkish authorities were investigating the al-Qaida claims.

“Our security teams, our intelligence services have to work to determine the extent of truth of the claims,” Erdogan said.

Earlier, interior minister Abdulkadir Aksu said the attacks likely had international links and discredited earlier claims by a tiny Turkish Islamic militant group, saying it did not have the capacity to launch the sophisticated attacks.

“It is very likely that there is an international connection. We are not ruling out any possibility, including al-Qaida involvement,” he said.

The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades claimed Saturday’s attacks in an e-mail to the London-based paper al-Quds al Arabi, saying it had learnt that Israeli intelligence agents were inside the synagogues.

The group has been linked in the past to al-Qaida, although it remains unclear if the group exists. A copy of its statement was obtained by The Associated Press.

The London-based weekly Al-Majalla also received an e-mailed responsibility claim that said al-Qaida carried out the Istanbul attacks, as well as the November 12 car bomb attack outside the Italian police headquarters in Nasariyah, Iraq that killed 19 Italians and more than a dozen Iraqis.

The explosions, set off two minutes apart, devastated Neve Shalom, Istanbul’s largest synagogue and symbolic centre to the city’s 25,000-member Jewish community, and the Beth Israel synagogue around three miles away.

At least six Jews at Beth Israel were among those killed in the blasts, which also wounded 300 people, including Jews and Muslim passers-by.

Some analysts believe Saturday’s attacks meant as a warning to Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government against continuing close relations with Israel and the West.

“This was a message for the government against pursuing pro-US policies as well as an attempt to hurt Israel,” said Umit Ozdag, a terrorism expert.

Turkey, a predominantly Muslim nation which has long had a secular regime, is an ally of Israel and the US and is Nato’s only Muslim member.

Israeli intelligence and explosives experts worked with Turkish teams to investigate the bombings.

Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom flew to Istanbul on Saturday to show solidarity with the small Jewish community in Turkey.

One of the e-mailed statements warned of further attacks and demanded that the US release Arab prisoners held at Guantanamo in Cuba. It also warned President George W Bush that attacks would be directed at the US itself.

“There is more to come. By God the Jews of the world will regret that their (men) thought of invading the lands of Muslims,” the statement said.

Aksu, the Turkish interior minister, said the attacks appeared to be suicide attacks.

“I was convinced that these attacks were suicide bombings after I saw the scenes of the attacks and was briefed by authorities,” he said.

Aksu said the attacks involved a pair of Isuzu pickup trucks.

Each pickup was packed with some 400 kilos (880lbs) of explosives, a mix of ammonium sulphate, nitrate and compressed fuel, a senior police official said, according to Turkey’s semi-official Anatolia news agency.

In 1986, Palestinian gunmen killed 22 worshippers at Neve Shalom.

Al-Qaida is thought to have carried out an April 2002 vehicle bombing at a historic synagogue on the Tunisian resort island of Djerba that killed 21 people, mostly foreign tourists.