ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) — Turkish officials investigated
claims that the al-Qaida terrorist network was responsible for the
truck bombings that devastated two Istanbul synagogues and killed
24 people, the prime minister said early yesterday.

Picking through the debris at one of the damaged synagogues,
searchers yesterday found the remains of an elderly Jewish
worshipper, a doctor at the government health department said.

That raised the total death toll from Saturday’s attacks
to 24 from 23. An earlier toll of Jews killed stood at six, because
the Jewish community had already counted the woman as among the
dead. The woman’s granddaughter also was killed, her body
found the day of the attacks.

A Turkish newspaper said the driver of one of the trucks was
filmed by the security camera outside the Neve Shalom synagogues.
But it quoted police officials as saying the driver’s
identity was still unclear. Hurriyet said the son of the
truck’s owner has been missing for two weeks.

On Sunday, two Arabic-language newspapers received separate
statements claiming Osama bin Laden’s group was responsible
for the bombings, which Turkish officials said were likely the work
of suicide bombers who detonated explosives in pickup trucks.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkish authorities
were investigating the al-Qaida claims, and there was no way to
independently confirm the authenticity of the claims.

“Our security teams, our intelligence services have to
work to determine the extent of truth of the claims,” Erdogan
said.

Earlier, Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu said the attacks were
likely carried out by someone with international links, and
rejected earlier claims of responsibility by a tiny Turkish Islamic
militant group, saying it did not have the capacity to launch the
sophisticated attacks.

“It is very likely that there is an international
connection. We are not ruling out any possibility, including
al-Qaida involvement,” he said. Aksu told AP the bombings
appeared to be suicide attacks.

A Turkish intelligence official told The Associated Press that
security forces had been expecting a suicide strike but said it was
very difficult to prevent such an action. The official, speaking on
condition of anonymity yesterday, said one person was still being
questioned in Istanbul over the synagogue blasts but that the
person didn’t appear to have ties with al-Qaida.

Turkish newspaper reports yesterday said that four Turks who
were questioned and released on Sunday included some who allegedly
provided fake passports to three al-Qaida suspects captured in
Turkey last year as they illegally entered from Iran.

Istanbul’s governor, Muammer Guler, said yesterday that
more people had been detained in the attacks, according to private
Turk NTV, but did not say when.

The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades claimed Saturday’s attacks
in an e-mail to the London-based paper al-Quds al-Arabi, saying it
had learned that Israeli intelligence agents were inside the
synagogues.

It’s not clear that the group exists, though it has been
linked in the past to al-Qaida. A copy of its statement was
obtained by The Associated Press.

The London-based weekly Al-Majalla also received an e-mailed
responsibility claim that said al-Qaida carried out the Istanbul
attacks, as well as the Nov. 12 car bomb attack outside the Italian
police headquarters in Nasariyah, Iraq that killed 19 Italians and
14 other people.

The explosions, set off two minutes apart, devastated Neve
Shalom, Istanbul’s largest synagogue and symbolic center to
the city’s 25,000-member Jewish community, and the Beth
Israel synagogue about three miles away.

All of the dead and most of the more than 300 wounded were in
the Beth Israel attack. Sixty-six of the wounded remained
hospitalized, with 10 in intensive care units, NTV said
yesterday.

Some analysts believe Saturday’s attacks were meant to
warn to Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government against keeping
close relations with Israel and the West. Turkey, a predominantly
Muslim nation which has long had a secular regime, is an ally of
Israel and the United States and is NATO’s only Muslim
member.

“Turkey is on the al-Qaida’s hit list,” said
Sami Kohen, a commentator with Milliyet newspaper. “In their
eyes, Turkey is a country that has close ties to the West. It also
is in close cooperation with Israel.”

Turkey’s parliament agreed last month to let the
government send troops to Iraq to relieve U.S. forces there, but
retracted the offer in the face of strong Iraqi opposition.

Israeli intelligence and explosives experts worked with Turkish
teams to investigate the bombings.