Al-Qaeda's Hand In Istanbul Plot

"I got it," Polat told Aktas. Aktas gave Polat another $1,500 for getaway money and a new ID.

On Saturday, Nov. 15, Polat watched as Jewish worshipers arrived for the weekly service. At 9 a.m. the road was clear. He dialed. "Come and take your 1 billion." The voice in his ear replied with a Turkish saying that has a religious overtone: "If we don't see each other again, we're all square."

"We're square," Polat replied.

A moment later, another leader called to say there would be no more contact. Following instruction, Polat opened the Nokia and removed an electronic card containing subscriber information. He broke it and threw it away. Eight minutes later he felt the earth shake, then sirens. The phone he also broke in two on his way home, tossing the pieces into the garden of a bread factory.

At his home, he changed clothes and turned on the television. It showed scenes of carnage created by a second explosion, this one at another synagogue, where a bar mitzvah was underway. "And I started to regret, watching the pictures on TV," Polat said.

Ugurlu phoned him and came to see him, edgy. The police had already broken down the door of his father. Ugurlu talked about the men who had driven the trucks. "He said one of these people was going to be married a month later," Polat later told police. "He said, 'He's married to the angels now.' "

The final two bombs were detonated five days later. Just before 11 a.m. on Nov. 20, with the city still on edge, Ugurlu steered a pickup truck packed with explosives into the front gate of the British Consulate, killing 17 people, including the British consul. Kuncak blew up his truck outside the London-based HSBC Bank, killing 11.

By then, Aktas was in Syria with other organizers, one of whom crossed the frontier with a load of underwear meant to make him look like a merchant headed to market. They made their way to Aleppo, where Sakka, the Syrian al-Qaeda man, had a house. Hiding in it, they cheered the televised coverage of the bombings. They laid low for five months, then made their way into Iraq, according to evidence from two suspects interrogated in Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

In Iraq, Sakka served as a senior lieutenant to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. Sakka, his features altered by plastic surgery, was captured in the Turkish resort town of Antalya while allegedly making final preparations for an attack on a cruise ship. He apparently planned to survive by escaping on an underwater scooter.

The Abu Ghraib prisoners said Aktas later died in Fallujah, scene of repeated fighting between Sunni insurgents and U.S. troops.

Equipped with a Hotmail address for Aktas and $1,200, Yitiz went by bus to Tehran, where he met another fleeing conspirator. For hours, the two wandered in a park talking about the carnage. Within days, each returned to Turkey to surrender. "I had no idea that innocent people were going to be hurt," Yitiz maintained. "I did not even guess that."

Polat was arrested trying to leave Turkey.

The man whose job it was to awaken the four drivers on the day of their deaths, Harun Ilhan, was captured in southwest Turkey. He told police he had traveled overland, staying with friends along the way.

"In these friendly circles, people were talking about the explosions. Nobody knew anything about them other than me," he said. "People were saying that people who did this could not be Muslims. I did not say anything. I remained silent."