Al-Qaeda's Hand In Istanbul Plot

"Secrecy is important," said defendant Adnan Ersoz. "You wouldn't know who studied in which study group. Suicide bombers were approached privately."

The Four Bombers

Yitiz was approached three times -- first in August 2003 by Aktas, a few days later by Bac, then by both "together, insistently."

"But I did not accept," he said.

Of the four who did, two were from the same town in eastern Turkey. Mesut Cabuk and Gokhan Elaltuntas had traveled together to Pakistan and returned wearing beards and gowns. Before the bombings they told their families they were going to Istanbul to open a computer shop.

In an apartment in Istanbul, a third bomber, Feridun Ugurlu, spent hours underlining passages in what his brother described to police as "radical Islamic books." Since returning from Pakistan in 1996, Ugurlu had been a sullen presence in his parents' home. He spoke little, except to press on his relatives volumes that promoted a purist line of Islam known as Salafism.

"I'm old enough to make the distinction between good and bad," his brother Suleyman recalled Ugurlu telling his father. "Don't put your nose in my life."

The fourth bomber was Ilyas Kuncak, 47, a spice merchant. Bearded and pious, he gave no hint of a secret life. "It's funny, because when he came back from military service, he was a communist," Abdullah Karadag, a family friend, said in an interview. "He had long hair. In these fights, left versus right, he was on the left, fighting against what he became."

In his final days Kuncak ate little, spoke less and laughed not at all, his wife noticed. But "the family is innocent," Karadag said. "The guilt lies only with brother Ilyas, and there's nothing much left of him to blame either."

'The Time Has Come'

"Dress like a groom," Aktas said, pressing the Turkish lira equivalent of $100 in the hand of Yusuf Polat. It was a few days before the first attack. Next, Aktas handed over a new Nokia cellphone, model 3315, gunmetal gray. The speed dial was programmed with three names: Mahmut, Ahmet and Rashit -- coded, like the words the sock salesman was to speak into the phone.

"The time has come," Aktas announced.

Polat's job was to stand outside the Beth Israel synagogue in the busy commercial neighborhood known as Sisli. If the road in front of the temple was clear, he was to hit the speed dial and say, "Mahmut Bey, come and take your 1 billion."

If the road was blocked and the truck was to head instead toward the rear entrance, the amount to mention was "2 billion."