TWIN blasts, well-synchronised. Both by suicide bombers. Jewish and British targets. Similar to the 1998 twin blasts in Kenya and Tanzaniya carried out by al-Qaeda’s suicide terrorists against American targets. These were the reasons cited not only by many British and American analysts, but also by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, for concluding or suspecting that al-Qaeda carried out the recent bombings in Turkey at the local office of the HSBC bank and the British Consulate in Istanbul, in which 26 British and Turkish civilians, including the British Consul General, were killed.

These reasons are very weak and show how little Western analysts understand jihadi terrorism, which has been playing havoc in different parts of the world since the New York World Trade Center explosion of February 1993.

India has been the largest victim of this jihadi terrorism, with nearly 20,000 innocent civilians having lost their lives, but they were killed not by al-Qaeda, but by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Jaish-e- Mohammad (JEM) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HUJI), all Pakistani organisations aligned with al-Qaeda in Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front (IIF). They are allies of al-Qaeda.

The blasts in Mumbai on August 25, 2003, which claimed 52 lives, were also well-synchronised twin blasts, but those were not suicide terrorism. The blasts were carried out by the LeT through local Muslims, who had their own cause for anger because of the perceived failure of the Government of Gujarat to protect their co-religionists during the violent riots of last year.

It is important to keep this distinction between al-Qaeda and the IIF in mind; otherwise, one tends to go wrong in one’s analysis and keeps looking for enemies from outside the country when they are often right in one’s midst. This is what happened in Bali and Casablanca; it was initially thought that al-Qaeda had carried out the blasts, but it turned out that they were carried out by local elements sympathetic to al-Qaeda for local reasons.

This is what happened in Istanbul too. Initially, al-Qaeda elements from outside were blamed, but the investigation has revealed that the masterminds and the suicide bombers were locals and not externally based. That is, local jihadis looking up to bin Laden for inspiration and possibly trained by the IIF, but not forming part of al-Qaeda, carried out the terrorist strikes on their own without any directions or coordination from al-Qaeda. Only when there is the involvement of Arab suicide bombers there is legitimate ground for suspicion of direct al-Qaeda involvement. In the synagogue blasts, it has now emerged that the two suicide bombers were Turks.

It is apparent that the blasts against the two synagogues against British establishments were interconnected. To get a hang of the latest bombings, it is necessary to take note of the progress made in the investigation of the synagogue blasts. As per the version of the Turkish authorities, the following facts have emerged from the investigation made so far. Both the suicide bombers were Turks, but one of them is believed to have carried a Pakistani passport, the reasons for which are not clear. They have been identified as Mesut Cabuk, who had spent some time in Iran, Pakistan and possibly Afghanistan in recent years, and Gokhan Elaltuntas, who has two cousins presently in prison on charges of terrorist attacks carried out in the early 1990s. They had two accomplices, Azad Ekinci and Feridun Ugurlu, who are believed to have purchased the pick-up trucks used in the attacks. Both of them had spent some time in Pakistan. They seem to have fled Turkey after helping the suicide bombers.

It has been reported that Azad Ekinci had been questioned by the police in the past over involvement in the activities of the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders’ Front (IBDA-C), thereby giving rise to the suspicion that the group might have carried out the synagogue bombings, either on its own or with the assistance of al-Qaeda or any of the components of the IIF, such as the LET and the HUM.

The IBDA-C was established in 1975 by a breakaway faction of the youth group of the then Islamic Salvation Party headed by former Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan. It is a strong critic of secularism and Mustafa Kemal Pasha, and advocates the restoration of the Ottoman Empire just as the LET advocates the restoration of the Moghul rule in India. The IBDA-C’s anger over the perceived British role in the break-up of the Ottoman Empire could explain its motive for attacking British personnel and interests, if it is established that it also had a role in the recent blasts. Were the blasts timed, at the instance of al-Qaeda, to coincide with President George W Bush’s high-profile UK visit to embarrass him and Prime Minister Tony Blair? In the past, the IBDA-C had attacked members of the Greek Orthodox community, secular journalists etc, but had not shown till now an inclination to take to suicide terrorism. However, in February 2000, it claimed responsibility for a quadruple bomb attack in Istanbul, not involving suicide bombers. Sections of the Turkish media have contradicted reports of the involvement of the IBDA-C. They have quoted police sources as saying that the suspects were really members of a little-known group called Beyyiat el-Imam, meaning "allegiance to the Imam", which, it is claimed, was formed in the al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and is reportedly led by a Saudi cleric identified as Abu Musab. He is believed to have taken shelter in Iran after the Taliban were driven out of Afghanistan.