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Times Online - Focus: Target Britain

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Is anywhere now safe? A special report into how terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda struck directly at British interests in Istanbul



Kismet is a word that is little used now in the English language.

It is dismissed as twee; but in its original Turkish it
is still the most common way of explaining luck, providence, fate — the roll of the dice that decides who lives and who dies.

Murat Akif Hazine, a waiter at the coffee shop opposite the British consulate general in the old heart of Istanbul, believes that kismet was at work last Thursday when one of his favourite English customers turned down an invitation to stop for his usual cup of sweet Turkish tea.

The short figure of Roger Short — he was the kind of man who used to joke about how apt his name was — hurried from the consulate that morning to have his shoes shined by a bootblack in the nearby fish market, something that he had been promising to do for days.

As Short returned at about 10.50am, Hazine hailed him. But there was no time for the usual banter. Short had an appointment in the consulate, where he was in the second year of a posting that he adored as Her Majesty's consul general.

Perhaps 10 minutes later his wife Victoria popped out of the consulate's heavy iron gates into Halambasi Street to buy some coffee.

The Shorts had been together for 32 years, spending much of that time in Turkey and neighbouring Bulgaria. They loved the ornate Istanbul consulate building, which was designed by Sir Charles Barry, architect of the houses of parliament.

It was a bit of a mess at the moment due to renovations after a fire, but Victoria Short had restored the Victorian garden — where Agatha Christie once sat and dreamt up a whodunnit — while her husband used temporary office accommodation in a lodge next to the gatehouse.

This office was in a vulnerable spot, but as the Shorts' friend, Lady Logan, wife of the former British ambassador to Turkey, said: "You get on with your life. Quite frankly, what can you do?"

So it was that, just after Victoria left on her errand, a loud boom echoed across the city. Many of those who heard it in the Tepebasi district near the consulate thought it was an earthquake. Minutes later, at 11.07am, the truth became all too horrifyingly apparent.

A green pick-up truck came careering up Yenikarsi Street, lurching from side to side, and swerved left into the consulate gates. There was an almighty bang, followed by a moment of silence — and then pandemonium.

Through the smoke, falling debris, maimed bodies and screaming survivors, it became clear that Roger Short's office had been obliterated. The two-storey building had disappeared.

His wife was still down the street, unaware that their years together, their plans for a peaceful retirement in Istanbul starting at Christmas next year, were over. He had been killed instantly, with two British members of his staff.
"If he had stayed outside with us for tea he would still be alive," said Hazine, wringing his hands outside the only superficially damaged Pano Saraphanesi coffee shop yesterday. "None of us was hurt. A few minutes later and he would have been all right. I call it kismet."

IN Downing Street, Tony Blair had called an early cabinet meeting as he had a busy day ahead with his visitor, President George W Bush. When the ministers sat down it was 9am in London and 11am in Istanbul.

At 9.20am, an official came in with a note. Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, hurried out. He came back with news that was still shocking for all that it had been so long predicted: Al-Qaeda had fulfilled its threats to spill British blood. It, or its affiliates, had successfuly struck at British targets abroad at the very moment when Bush was visiting the ally that had joined him in the invasion of Iraq.

Not only the British consulate had been attacked but also the Istanbul headquarters of HSBC, the British bank, where another huge explosion — the first boom of the morning — had wreaked similar death and devastation.
Bush heard the news before leaving Buckingham Palace to lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown warrior in Westminster Abbey.

Throughout the hours ahead, as Blair and Bush adapted the long-planned choreography of the state visit to fit the sombre new mood — and as 70,000 of their opponents marched through central London branding them as war criminals — Britain gradually came to terms with the evidence that it really is in the frontline of the war on terror.
To Blair and Bush, this was vindication of their alliance. At a press conference, the prime minister vowed that the fight against global terrorism would not be derailed by "thugs or killers". For good measure, he added that terrorism would not force Britain out of Iraq.

To the demonstrators, however, the carnage in Istanbul was the fault of these two leaders. They were reaping the whirlwind they had sown by invading Iraq. To the British police and intelligence services — and the hordes of Secret Service, CIA and FBI officers who had flown across with the president — there was an emergency to be tackled and lessons to be learnt.

What was the immediate threat in Britain, where the security alert was only one notch below the highest rating? And what had gone wrong in Istanbul that such an obvious target as the consul general should have been working a few feet from a narrow street, for Al-Qaeda's suicide bombers to pick off? This was above all a Turkish calamity, however. Of the 30 dead, 27 are Turks. Furthermore, the suicide bombers were striking at a society that is a model for the American neo-conservative political prescription for the salvation of the Middle East: a functioning Islamic democracy. But it is one with economic, social and security problems that can only be exacerbated by terror.

Its history is evident in old Istanbul, where the 19th-
century British consulate jostled alongside beer halls, spice markets and discos, all squeezed close together in picturesque buildings from a bygone age. Once the heart of the Ottoman capital, today it attracts shoppers and tourists.
This part of town with its twisting streets is horribly vulnerable to bombers. Last weekend they attacked two synagogues, killing 23 people and injuring 146. Now police are sifting for body parts in the debris around the consulate.
The brutal lesson of Thursday is that Al-Qaeda can also strike at a very different kind of target. HSBC's new high-rise headquarters sits on a broad thoroughfare in Istanbul's main business district. Yet it was shattered by a car bomb thought to consist of 500lb of explosive.

The modern and elegant area around the HSBC building might be somewhere in western Europe or America — a fact that illustrates the misapprehension that some people in Britain may have of Turkey as a land of fanatical football hooligans, brutal soldiers, Kurdish terrorists and cheap holidays.

Although Istanbul is at the extreme edge of Europe, it is the continent's largest city and of course one of the oldest. For many of its 12m people, trying to live a modern European metropolitan lifestyle on incomes distinctly lower than those of western Europe, the bombings are the latest in a series of cruel jolts and economic setbacks.

In August 1999 an earthquake in a nearby province killed at least 17,000 people. In February 2001, mismanagement of the economy and rampant corruption triggered a headlong economic collapse which drove many comfortably off families temporarily below the poverty line. Many people fear that they now face more blows to their chances of a decent life.

On the fringes of Istanbul's society, groups of radicals dream of deflecting the country from the path to modernity. If they have now succeeded in scaring away international investors and triggering another economic downturn, they will have advanced their cause significantly.
Like Indonesia and Morocco, other recent Al-Qaeda targets, Turkey is one of a band of countries along the frontiers of the Islamic world where East and West overlap, making it relatively easy for terrorists to strike
at westerners and western targets using short lines of communication.

Turkish public opinion is every bit as implacable where terrorism is concerned as are the country's conservative military and political elites.They will give Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, pretty much a blank cheque to ensure security.

But it is impossible to guarantee protection against suicide bombers who do not mind killing more bystanders than their target victims.

Thursday's attacks, like the strikes on the synagogues five days earlier, are presumed to come from the ultra-religious right groups which view everything modern and western, and even the state of Turkey itself, as the work of the devil.
Members of IBDA-C (The Front of the Great East Raiders), a small, shadowy movement among extreme Sunni Muslims, have been held since the synagogue bombing. IBDA-C assassinated a leading secularist former minister in the 1990s and has attacked synagogues, churches, beer halls and busts of Kemal AtatŸrk, the founder of modern Turkey. But recently it has kept to the sidelines and it is possible that both Turkish and foreign intelligence operations failed to give it sufficient attention.
Analysts of Turkish terrorism say that organisations such as IBDA-C maintain lines of contact with Al-Qaeda and other sponsors of terrorism and act as local subcontractors when a suitable "project" comes up.

Security sources do not believe IBDA-C's remnants had the levels of sophistication required to carry out last week's attacks. "They are incompetent," said a Turkish security source, pointing out that they had once attacked a synagogue by tossing grenades at it on a Sunday afternoon. "Almost certainly the suicide bombers were Turkish and a lot of the intelligence was provided by Turks," he said. "But in terms of operational brains and logistical support and how to put the bombs together, all that would have come from outside."

Organisations such as IBDA-C see themselves as members of a worldwide revolutionary religious and political community.

Their existence is an embarrassment to moderate Muslims in Turkey, especially those who would like to see a pious, conformist version of the religion playing a greater part in the country's life without disrupting the drive to modernise society or the average Turk's patriotism.

Islamic activists in Turkey range from the radical to the moderate. The ruling AKP (Justice and Development party), which swept to power in elections almost exactly a year ago, is the epitome of the moderate pole of thought. It supports Turkey's application for the European Union and the deepening liberalisation this implies. It has continued Turkey's strategic partnership with Israel and membership of Nato. And it did its best to get Turkish soldiers into Iraq to support the coalition there. As such, it is anathema to the radicals.

It was in this complex and explosive milieu that Short was revelling in his last post before retirement. He had arrived in 2001 after working in Brazil, Norway, Bulgaria and most recently Sarajevo, but he had spent the best years of his career on previous postings in Turkey.

A family man with two daughters and a son, he laughed easily and loved to tell stories. He liked to wear white linen suits and was unmistakably English.

He would have been 59 on December 9, but he was not just serving out his time. Intensely interested in the country where he was first posted in 1967 and speaking the language well, he was planning to stay on teaching at Istanbul University.

"He was a really good egg," said Professor Norman Stone, the former Oxford historian who is now teaching in Turkey. They often had a drink together.

The Shorts enjoyed the ambience around their home, the smell of fish frying and the cries of shopkeepers. "It's rather like living in Soho, but nicer," said Logan. "There are clubs and restaurants and a big school nearby. And little arcades where you can buy buttons and haberdashery."

The Shorts were hoping to move into the magnificent main building of the consulate in February after renovation following a fire. It is, with New York and Hong Kong, one of the largest British consulates — a Victorian fantasy of orientalism that held many memories for the Shorts: they danced in its ballroom during a visit by the Queen in 1971, the year of their marriage.

THEIR temporary quarters in the consulate garden seemed serene and safe among the plane trees and rhododendrons. But many in the British community in Istanbul, including Short's surviving colleagues, wish with hindsight that Britain had followed the example of America — which moved its consulate out of vulnerable old Istanbul to fortress-like new premises set on a barren hilltop on the northern edge of the city this year.

After the synagogue bombings, the Foreign Office advised against all but essential travel to Istanbul but appears not to have doubted that the consulate general had adequate protection. The British community felt secure, too.

After all, the last major terrorist attack on British interests in Istanbul was 11 years ago when a far-leftist group murdered the British managing director of an insurance company. The last attack on a senior British diplomat in the city dated back to the second world war when Nazi agents planted a bomb in the luggage of the British ambassador arriving from Bulgaria. He survived but some Turks were killed and there is still a crack in the marble lobby of the Pera Palace hotel a few hundred yards from the consulate. Since the first Gulf war, reinforced steel gates weighing 1½ tons and a crash barrier controlled entry to the consulate. A Turkish police car was parked on protection duty, but there was no attempt to close the road, perhaps because it was a busy junction and closure would have caused chaos.

That was the extent of the consulate's defences as the suicide bomber came up Yeni Carsi Caddesi, crossed Istiklal Caddesi — a pedestrianised thoroughfare that is Istanbul's equivalent of London's Oxford Street — and crashed into the consulate's entrance.

Ramazan Soyturk, a gardener who has worked at the consulate for 17 years, was planting lettuces when the bomb exploded. Running round to the front he saw that the steel gate had been thrown 70 yards. Both Short's office and the consulate clubhouse next door were flattened and Soyturk saw human arms among the rubble.

THERE was no hope for Short, his personal assistant Lisa Hallworth, 38, or another British employee, Scots-born Nanette Kurma, 41.

Cafer and Kiraz Gunduz, a Turkish couple on the domestic staff, were also killed. So was Ismail Ciftli, 36, who was working as a security guard. He had two daughters. His brother Salman, known for being incredibly deferential to consulate visitors, was cut by glass in the blast but survived.
One of the luckiest consulate staff was Huseyin Karacus, 55, a security guard manning the front gate. "There was a sudden explosion and everything came down on top of me. Several minutes later I was pulled out from underneath three bodies," he said.

In the street there was pandemonium. Saadi Ozdemkir, a journalist working for Hurriyet, Istanbul's biggest selling daily newspaper, had been at the chamber of industry nearby. After the blast he rushed towards the consulate, noticing suddenly that people were stepping on human body parts. He came across a woman. "Four to five people went over and tried to lift her head. But she did not want to move and resisted and then stopped moving altogether. That must have been her last breath," he said.

Kulcan Boyun, 30, was killed in a small textile workshop opposite. She had got engaged seven months ago and was due to marry in two weeks. As rescue workers scrambled to save people, a similar scene of carnage was unfolding five miles away at the devastated 18-storey headquarters of HSBC bank in the Levent business district.

Here the first suicide bomb had gouged a huge crater in the road outside and sheared off the concrete and glass facade of the building, shaking windows 10 miles away.
Body parts rained down from the sky. Thick pungent black and yellow smoke rose, and a smell of ammonia and sulphur filled the air as emergency services screamed through the streets.

As Britain's biggest bank, with its headquarters in London and scores of branches in Turkey where it has operated for 10 years, HSBC was a symbol of western consumerism and an obvious target.

Probably nothing could have protected the building, which towers over a wide avenue awash with traffic, from a suicide attack.

"Suddenly everything began to shake and fall down on top of us," said Ezma Ozer who was in the canteen on
the second basement level underground.
"At first we thought it was an earthquake and then somebody said there had been an explosion and we should get out. We had had a lot of drill for earthquakes and for this reason we were able to get
out quickly."

A local doctor said he realised that it was a bomb when an arm came flying through his clinic window. Nevza Atal was half a mile away and rushed to help through streets the colour of ash. He passed a woman with lacerated legs flailing on the ground and screaming.

"There were corpses lying on the corner. One or two people were brave enough to run towards the ruins where they were lying wounded but nobody knew how to help them," he said.

"There was a woman on the ground in front of me trying to comfort and save her little daughter and to cover her with her body. But she was not able to save either herself or the child she was holding and they slowly died."

Yusuf Demir spotted a wounded man lying in front of the bank. Even though he had an arm and legs missing he was trying to move.

"I wanted to help too but couldn't think. I was dizzy with shock. I said, 'You have been hurt. Don't try to get to your feet. Please don't try to turn over'. That was all I could say. How could I tell him he did not have any legs?
"The man stared into my eyes but within two minutes he had stopped moving."

AS the Turkish police investigation and massive clear-up operation went on yesterday and the wounded fought for life in hospital, a sober re-examination was being undertaken of the week's events. Sixteen anti-terrorist police from London flew into Istanbul to assist the Turks and Britain warned that further terror attacks may be attempted.

Turkey is no stranger to terrorism. But it has never faced attacks of such sophistication or such magnitude. For many Turks last Thursday was their September 11.
"People were frozen in their offices, too frightened to stay and too frightened to move and they are still in enormous shock and will be for a long time," said a businessman.
If this is the start of a campaign of terror targeting western interests and Turkish security, the stakes are very high on this bridge between Europe and the Middle East. The evidence unearthed so far about the bombers illustrates not just Turkey's own complexities but also its geopolitical vulnerability.

Turkish investigators say they have identified the two suicide bombers who carried out the synagogue attacks from their identity cards and DNA tests.

One was Mesut Cabuk, 29, and the other Gokhan Elaltuntas, 22. Cabuk had visited Iran, Pakistan and possibly Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001, according to stamps in his passport. Elaltuntas had two cousins in jail for attacks carried out for an Islamic group in the early 1990s.
Both men come from the town of Bingol, a remote
spot 600 miles southeast of Istanbul. This is a place where many girls receive no education and the young men have little knowledge of the outside world as their education is controlled by religious brotherhoods.

If it sounds like Afghanistan under the Taliban, the comparison is apt. As well as being a centre for Kurdish nationalism, Bingol is home to some of the most virulently anti-Kurd groups, who have conducted widespread campaigns of assassination over many years.

Cabuk and Elaltuntas seem to be closely connected to Hezbollah, a local group of extreme Sunnis, many of whom have experience of fighting in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan with Osama Bin Laden's jihad.

Terror experts suspect that members of the Ansar ul-Islam organisation — a predominantly Kurdish Islamic affiliate of Al-Qaeda which fled from Afghanistan to northern Iraq — may have linked up with the Bingol extremists.

The evidence for such a nexus is subtle but compelling, and it throws a different light on Thursday's bombings.Since losing their main base during the Iraq war, members of Ansar ul-Islam have scattered.

Some probably escaped to Turkey, where they would have found much in common with the Bingol extremists and could also provide them with bombing expertise.
Others are thought to have moved into the main cities in Iraq and to have been behind attacks on Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Kurdish movement co-operating with the Americans. Jalal Talabani, the PUK president, is the chairman of Iraq's governing council.

At almost exactly the same time as the bombs were going off in Istanbul on Thursday, two more exploded in Iraq, both of them aimed at Talabani's organisation. While this was happening, Talabani was in Turkey as a guest of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey.
M J Gohel, a terrorism expert with the Asia Pacific Foundation, sees a high degree of linkage between Ansar ul-Islam, the bombings in Istanbul and Talabani's presence in Turkey.

"Since the bombing and destruction of their training camps in northern Iraq by US forces, dregs of the Ansar ul-Islam terror group, affiliated with Al-Qaeda, have dispersed and moved not only into the Sunni triangle based around Baghdad but also relocating to neighbouring countries like Turkey," he said.

"The vehicle bomb attacks that we have witnessed in Istanbul resemble the type of attacks aimed against US and other western interests in Iraq, the style format and ferocity are very similar."

If he is correct, an alliance between Al-Qaeda outsiders and fanatical Turks aimed at destabilising Turkey, humiliating Britain and shaking the power of Talabani in Iraq appears to best describe the agenda of last week's attacks It is a reminder that the war against terror is not simply a matter of Britain and America against Islamic bombers; the complexities of the Middle East's own feuds and enmities are never far from the surface.

At the shattered consulate in Istanbul, under a bright autumn sky, Scotland Yard detectives yesterday began the process of sifting through the rubble. They went on for hours with customary professionalism hoping for a clue that might help them to win a victory in this new battleground against terror.
Watching, their faces grey and lips quivering with emotion, were a small group of Turk storekeepers who had known Short and who mourned his murder. The Union Jack fluttered at half-mast. But Metin Munir, a Turkish friend of Short's for 30 years, remembered his joyful spirit.

"I can't be sad about Roger's death," he said in a touching valedictory.

"It sounds strange but true.Death was his last joke. They didn't kill him. They blew up the building, tore down the wall, broke the trees, burnt the grass, tore up the flowers and put an end to his life. But they didn't kill him.
"Goodbye, Roger. We will be together again in the not very distant future. Don't finish all the McEwan's Export."

November 23, 2003 at 01:01 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home