Reuters
May 3, 2004
By Gareth Jones
ANKARA -- Turkish police said Monday they had foiled a bomb plot
targeting a NATO summit in Istanbul at the end of June which is to be
attended by President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French
President Jacques Chirac, and other Western leaders.
Police arrested 16 men they said were believed to belong to a militant
Islamist group called 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 Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden.
Turkish security has been stepped up since four devastating suicide
truck bomb attacks in Istanbul last November that killed 61 people. Al
Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Turkish television showed pictures of timing devices, guns and
explosive materials seized by the police in Bursa.
Since the November bombings, Istanbul -- Turkey's commercial hub and
largest city -- has witnessed several other much smaller attacks, the
most serious of which targeted a Masonic lodge and killed a waiter and
one of two suicide bombers.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20040503/wl_nm/security_turkey_nato_dc
.
|
