JOHN MOORE/AP SAUDI ARABIA: Like the Istanbul blasts, this Nov. 8 attack on a Riyadh compound housing mostly locals took place during the holy month of Ramadan

Posted Sunday, November 23, 2003; 15.23GMT
The twin bombings took the lives of at least 30 people, almost all Turkish citizens, and wounded more than 450. That was shock enough for the country, but the attacks came on the heels of similarly synchronized blasts just five days earlier at Istanbul's two main synagogues, assaults that killed 25, including the two bombers, and injured more than 300, also mostly Muslim Turks. Said Semih Idiz, a veteran columnist for the Aksam newspaper: "It's our 9/11."

From Washington to London to Istanbul, politicians and experts were quick to lay the blame on al-Qaeda. Officials noted that the bombing spree bore all the familiar hallmarks of Osama bin Laden's operational style: launching multiple suicide attacks almost simultaneously at soft targets. An obscure militant group even invoked bin Laden's name in claiming responsibility.

The blasts marked Turkey as the newest front in a wave of terror strikes that have spread across the Muslim world in the past six months from Iraq to Morocco to Saudi Arabia to Indonesia, making this Ramadan holiday a bloody season. In Muslim countries, the chosen targets have symbolized mainly Western and Jewish interests — Jakarta's J.W. Marriott Hotel, Casablanca's tourist cites and Jewish centers, residential compounds for foreign workers in Riyadh, Istanbul's synagogues and British offices. But a second assault Nov. 8 was on a compound housing mainly Muslims and Arabs. And the location of all these strikes may contain a grim message for Muslims: beware, anyone who cooperates with the West — the danger extends to you.

But the Istanbul attacks were also meant to reverberate 2,500 km to the west, in London, where Queen Elizabeth II and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were presiding over U.S. President George W. Bush's state visit to Britain. Although the suicide strikes had likely been conceived long before Bush's itinerary was confirmed, it was no coincidence that the planners chose to pull the trigger when the two architects of the war on terror were meeting. The unambiguous message for Bush and Blair: their war is a long way from won. Rather than being defeated by the U.S.-led war on terror, Islamic militants seem to be methodically widening their jihad, bringing carnage ever closer to the West.

The news was especially sobering for Blair. Turkey's worst ever acts of terror were also the deadliest direct attack on British targets since the 1998 bombing in Omagh, Northern Ireland, by an IRA splinter group, which killed 29. The consul general was one of three Brits killed. London and Washington issued broad warnings of possible imminent attacks against British and American interests abroad. But the contingent of British expatriates in Turkey, estimated at 2,000 in Istanbul alone, matched Blair's resolve, refusing to panic or flee. "I haven't even considered [leaving Istanbul] for a moment," said Andrew Foxall, 26, art director for an Istanbul-based creative agency. "I don't feel under threat here."

The question being raised in Britain was whether Brits were safe anywhere. London's police chief, Sir John Stevens, spoke of an "imminent" attack on the British capital, and said his force was on maximum alert. On Saturday, the Financial Times reported that a London-based terror group had tried to buy 500 kg of saponin (a toxic chemical) in Sweden, only to be foiled when the manufacturer grew suspicious of the size of the order and refused the sale. London police declined comment on the report. French terrorism experts, who have long contended that Islamic extremists deliberately avoided hitting British targets in order to protect their "Londonistan" haven, now believe that restraint has been abandoned. British military action in Iraq and a tough crackdown on extremist groups at home may have ended the truce. Thursday's blasts mean "the Rubicon has been crossed, British interests have been targeted in a major way," says M.J. Gohel, chief executive of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a London-based policy group. It doesn't follow that an attack on British soil is inevitable — terror groups are never that predictable — but neither would it come as a surprise.

On the Continent, those who stayed out of the Iraq war were not feeling any less vulnerable. "The attacks in Istanbul target Europe," the French daily Libération said in an editorial. "Bin Laden's time bombs will one day or another be launched against Berlin or Paris."

Turkey, too, was getting used to being a target, but for different reasons. As a secular Muslim state, it is a symbol of much that is inimical to the terrorists. "Jihadists don't want people to be able to say, 'See, democracy and freedom can thrive in a Muslim country,'" says a senior French antiterrorism official. Even under the current pro-Islamic government, democratic Turkey has remained staunchly secular and pro-Western. It was the first Muslim nation to recognize Israel and cultivates extensive ties with the Jewish state. Long a faithful U.S. ally and member of NATO, Turkey is an eager aspirant to the European Union. Although its people bitterly opposed the war in Iraq and parliament refused to let American soldiers deploy from Turkish soil, the government has been mending ties with the U.S., even offering to send peacekeepers to Baghdad (which the Iraqi Governing Council refused to accept).

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