ISTANBUL - The Turkish police have detained four people with suspected links to the Al-Qaeda terrorist network who were allegedly planning bomb attacks, Anatolia news agency reported Saturday.
The police seized papers containing instructions about making and detonating bombs in the homes of the suspects, detained in Istanbul's impoverished Bagcilar suburb, Anatolia quoted the anti-terror department as saying.
A rifle, a gun, a fake ID card as well as CDs and documents with "organizational content" were also seized.
The police determined that the four suspects were among a group that chanted slogans in favor of Al-Qaeda and displayed posters of the network in Bagcilar a day after Al-Qaeda's top operative in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a US air raid near Baghdad on June 7.
A local cell of Al-Qaeda is held responsible for four suicide bombings at two synagogues, the British consulate and a British-based bank in Istanbul in November 2003, which claimed 63 lives, left hundreds injured and caused massive destruction.
Seventy-three people, among them two Syrians, are currently on trial over the attacks.
09/09/2006 12:36 GMT