By Joe Parkinson
ISTANBUL — In Turkey, where coordinated Al-Qaeda attacks on Istanbul killed more than 60 people and wounded hundreds in 2003, President Abdullah Gul hailed the news, stressing it should serve as a warning to terrorist leaders elsewhere that they would be caught “dead or alive.”
Speaking to reporters at Ankara airport before departing for a state visit to Austria, Mr. Gul was quoted by state-run Anadolu Ajansi news agency as saying; “This news shows that the fate of terrorists and the leaders of terrorist organizations is to be caught in the end, dead or alive. That the most dangerous and sophisticated (terrorist) leader was caught this way, should be a lesson to everyone.”
Al-Qaeda has been held responsible for sporadic attacks in Turkey over the past decade, with Turkish police regularly targeting suspected al-Qaeda supporters since two sets of twin suicide bombings hit Istanbul five days apart in November 2003. A Turkish cell of al-Qaeda was held responsible for the attacks, in which explosive-laden trucks first targeted two synagogues, and then the British consulate and a British bank, killing a total of 63 people.
Turkey’s Islamic-leaning government has taken a tough stand against all forms of terrorism, but security services here say Al-Qaeda cells remain operational at a low level across the country, while there are small pockets of sympathy for jihadist Islam.
Turkish police arrested 120 al-Qaeda suspects in a major nationwide anti-terror operation in January, while Al-Qaeda’s leader in Istanbul was among a group of around 40 people detained by police last month (April) in a series of raids targeting Islamists in Turkey’s largest city.
via Turkey’s President Hails Death As a Warning – Dispatch – WSJ.
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