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American Morning
Turkish Police Have Arrested Several Suspects
Aired November 21, 2003 - 07:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Overseas now, Turkish police have arrested several suspects in yesterday's terrorist bombings. According to a Turkish newspaper, the driers in the two truck bomb attacks were from Turkey. The blasts killed 27 people, injured 450. Last Saturday, bombs at two Istanbul synagogues killed 23 people. Experts on terrorism say al Qaeda was behind both sets of bombings.
The "Christian Science Monitor's" bureau chief in Istanbul, Ilene Prusher, was at the scene of yesterday's consulate bombing and she joins us this morning from Istanbul.
Good morning.
Give me a sense of what you saw when you arrived at the scene just minutes, really, after this explosion happened.
ILENE PRUSHER, "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": Well, I'd have to say it was really quite a tragic scene. It was quite, you know, people were running around very upset, screaming. I saw people being taken away. I'd say there were a lot of hysterical people and probably the police forces and emergency crews were really struggling to deal with this, because this isn't something that happens very often in a place like Istanbul. And, you know, the entire area where the bomb went off really looks like a war zone now. There is glass shattered everywhere.
And, in general, Turks were really asking themselves why us and why is this happening now.
O'BRIEN: Give me a sense of how the security had been before these explosions and describe the area and what it looks like now today.
PRUSHER: We've asked a lot about that, especially after the bombings last weekend. And it seems that security was increased, but mostly in particular places where they thought extremists might use for targets again. So, of course, Jewish and also Christian sites had additional security. But the center of town pretty much continued as normal after Saturday's attacks and now we're seeing, of course, there are much more security forces out and the areas where the bombings took place are blocked off. And the shop owners are frantically trying to get into the areas where their shops are destroyed.
And I just came through there now and it's really amazing for the force of that bomb that, in fact, a greater number of people didn't die, because I must have seen at least three, four dozens shops that are just utterly destroyed. O'BRIEN: Four bombings over five days, terrorism experts say that it looks like the work of al Qaeda and also the work, in addition to that, in conjunction, I guess, is a better word, of Islamic, a militant Islamic group from Turkey.
Why is Turkey being targeted?
PRUSHER: Well, there are some people who asked the question should we have said, you know, why is Turkey being targeted or how long would it take until Turkey was targeted because, in fact, for some Islamic extremists, Turkey is sort of seen as the model of everything that a Muslim country should not be, being that it has a secular government, it's been very pro-Western, it's cooperated with the U.S. and Britain and other allies in the war on terror, and, of course, for a few years now, it's had strong relations, including military ties, with Israel.
So, in fact, it's been thought for a while that Turkey could become a target. But Turkey, especially since it opposed the war in Iraq and tried to stay out of it as much as possible, thought of itself as sort of on the fringes of the war on terror. And this week's events prove that for many people in the world, Turkey is very much a player and an important factor in what's happening around the region, and particularly in the Middle East.
And Turks are now thinking that perhaps this might not be the last that they're going to see, very unfortunately, of terrorism here.
O'BRIEN: Ilene Prusher is the Istanbul bureau chief for the "Christian Science Monitor."
Ilene, thank you this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 21, 2003 - 07:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Overseas now, Turkish police have arrested several suspects in yesterday's terrorist bombings. According to a Turkish newspaper, the driers in the two truck bomb attacks were from Turkey. The blasts killed 27 people, injured 450. Last Saturday, bombs at two Istanbul synagogues killed 23 people. Experts on terrorism say al Qaeda was behind both sets of bombings.
The "Christian Science Monitor's" bureau chief in Istanbul, Ilene Prusher, was at the scene of yesterday's consulate bombing and she joins us this morning from Istanbul.
Good morning.
Give me a sense of what you saw when you arrived at the scene just minutes, really, after this explosion happened.
ILENE PRUSHER, "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": Well, I'd have to say it was really quite a tragic scene. It was quite, you know, people were running around very upset, screaming. I saw people being taken away. I'd say there were a lot of hysterical people and probably the police forces and emergency crews were really struggling to deal with this, because this isn't something that happens very often in a place like Istanbul. And, you know, the entire area where the bomb went off really looks like a war zone now. There is glass shattered everywhere.
And, in general, Turks were really asking themselves why us and why is this happening now.
O'BRIEN: Give me a sense of how the security had been before these explosions and describe the area and what it looks like now today.
PRUSHER: We've asked a lot about that, especially after the bombings last weekend. And it seems that security was increased, but mostly in particular places where they thought extremists might use for targets again. So, of course, Jewish and also Christian sites had additional security. But the center of town pretty much continued as normal after Saturday's attacks and now we're seeing, of course, there are much more security forces out and the areas where the bombings took place are blocked off. And the shop owners are frantically trying to get into the areas where their shops are destroyed.
And I just came through there now and it's really amazing for the force of that bomb that, in fact, a greater number of people didn't die, because I must have seen at least three, four dozens shops that are just utterly destroyed. O'BRIEN: Four bombings over five days, terrorism experts say that it looks like the work of al Qaeda and also the work, in addition to that, in conjunction, I guess, is a better word, of Islamic, a militant Islamic group from Turkey.
Why is Turkey being targeted?
PRUSHER: Well, there are some people who asked the question should we have said, you know, why is Turkey being targeted or how long would it take until Turkey was targeted because, in fact, for some Islamic extremists, Turkey is sort of seen as the model of everything that a Muslim country should not be, being that it has a secular government, it's been very pro-Western, it's cooperated with the U.S. and Britain and other allies in the war on terror, and, of course, for a few years now, it's had strong relations, including military ties, with Israel.
So, in fact, it's been thought for a while that Turkey could become a target. But Turkey, especially since it opposed the war in Iraq and tried to stay out of it as much as possible, thought of itself as sort of on the fringes of the war on terror. And this week's events prove that for many people in the world, Turkey is very much a player and an important factor in what's happening around the region, and particularly in the Middle East.
And Turks are now thinking that perhaps this might not be the last that they're going to see, very unfortunately, of terrorism here.
O'BRIEN: Ilene Prusher is the Istanbul bureau chief for the "Christian Science Monitor."
Ilene, thank you this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
