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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (178052)	11/16/2003 3:25:41 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576865

Turks, Israelis Search Istanbul Blast Sites Sunday, November 16, 2003 1:57 a.m. ET By Daren Butler and Dan Williams ISTANBUL (Reuters) -<b. Turkish and Israeli security officials picked through debris seeking clues as to who was behind two bombs that killed 22 people at Istanbul synagogues, as Israel's foreign minister flew to the city on Sunday. Officials said international groups -- possibly including al Qaeda -- might have had a hand in the Saturday morning blasts, which wrecked cars and buildings over wide areas surrounding the heavily protected synagogues. A police spokesman said the death toll had risen overnight to 22 people -- including Jews and Muslim passers-by. A total of 242 others were wounded in the attack on a Muslim nation closely allied with Israel and the United States. The spokesman said a number of the wounded were still in hospital though many had been released. He said it was too early to give any details on the investigation as work was continuing. "There's still nothing certain," he said. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was due to visit the bomb sites and meet Turkish authorities later on Sunday. Security sources said investigators from Israel's Mossad security service were already helping with the probe. An Israeli religious forensic team, wearing fluorescent vests, scoured the bomb sites overnight for body parts. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan condemned the attacks, which dealt NATO-member Turkey a painful reminder of its long history of home-grown political violence. Officials said al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's international militant network, might have been involved in the explosions. "I condemn this terror attack in the strongest terms. Whoever is behind it, no stone will remain unturned (in our investigation)," Erdogan told a news conference at Istanbul airport on his return from northern Cyprus late on Saturday. "A platform of shared struggle against international terror has been established because of the point which global terror has now reached. I believe these events have an international dimension," he said before visiting the wounded in one hospital. An Israeli religious forensic team joined Turkish authorities at the scene of the blasts on Saturday evening. "We are, unfortunately, used to terror in Israel and feel we can help here, in accordance with Jewish law," the team's spokesman told curious local journalists. Psychiatrist Pinhas Dannon, from the Jewish Agency's grief counseling unit, accompanied the Israeli team. "We have our work cut out for us," he said. "As well as the dead there are some 200 wounded. That's 200 families in need of care, Jews and non-Jews alike." LOCAL CLAIM DISCOUNTED Turkish officials dismissed a claim from a radical Turkish Islamist group that it was behind the attacks. Islamist, Kurdish and leftist groups have in the past used violence in Turkey. More than 30,000 people have been killed in a Kurdish separatist insurgency in the southeast which dwindled in 1999 after the capture of the group's leader. "Turkish groups could not have done this," Zaman newspaper quoted one security official as saying, a view echoed in most Turkish newspapers, which saw al Qaeda's hand in the attacks. A senior Israeli security source told Reuters the blasts seemed to have been the work of an al Qaeda affiliate, possibly seeking to target both arch-foe Israel and moderate Muslim Turkey. Turkey has been preoccupied in recent months by plans to send troops to neighboring Iraq -- a move which it abandoned this month because of strong opposition from Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council. As a major tourist destination, Turkey is highly sensitive to incidents that tarnish its image abroad. The blasts may also sour recent optimism generated by hopes of European Union membership and an economic recovery from financial crises. Local representatives of the 25,000-strong Jewish community said the blasts were an attack on the whole of Turkey. Copyright © 2003 Reuters Limited. wireservice.wired.com