More than 20 held over Nato bomb plot

Turkish police have arrested more than 20 members of an al-Qaida linked group suspected of planning to bomb a Nato summit due to be attended by Tony Blair and George Bush next month.

Police detained the 16 in an operation in the north-western province of Bursa, a police statement said. It said the suspects were members of Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network, but gave no further details.

Private NTV television said eight others were detained in a simultaneous raid in Istanbul.

The Nato summit in Istanbul will be the first since Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Slovakia joined the alliance in April to take its membership to 26.

Turkey has heightened security ahead of the meeting, launching security sweeps throughout the country.

More than 60 people were killed in bomb attacks at two Istanbul synagogues and a London-based bank and the British Consulate last November.

Turkish officials have charged 69 suspected members of an al-Qaida cell in connection with the bombings and their trial is scheduled to begin later this month.

NTV said equipment to make remote-controlled bombs, books on bomb-making and CDs featuring Osama bin Laden were seized in the Bursa raid, which took place on April 29.

It showed footage of guns, rifles and electric equipment and clocks that were seized. It said some of the suspects had surveyed the site of a synagogue in Bursa.

The suspects were expected to appear before a court in Bursa later today.

An Islamic group based in northern Iraq also goes by the name Ansar al-Islam and is suspected bombings in February that left 109 dead in Irbil.

A police official said the Turkish group and the northern Iraq group operated independently, but shared “the same ideology and tactics.”

The Turkish group increased in size following the US war in Iraq, he said.

Earlier this month, police rounded up dozens of alleged members of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C, in simultaneous raids in Turkey, Italy, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The crackdown was seen as the fruit of increased international security cooperation before the Nato summit and the Athens Summer Olympics.

According to Turkish newspapers, more than 30,000 police and other security forces, including hundreds of snipers, are expected to be on duty at the summit.

Police are also reportedly keeping a close eye on anti-war, anti-globalisation, and various leftist groups ahead of the summit, fearing they could stage protests or attacks.