Two suicide bombers on March 9 attacked a restaurant in a Masonic lodge in Istanbul opening fire on around 40 diners before setting off explosives attached to their bodies, killing a waiter and wounding five other people. One attacker was killed in the blast, the other suffered severe injuries. Both had undergone training in camps in Afghanistan. The police on March 12 named the dead bomber as Nihat Dogruel, 26, who was born in Ankara, the capital, and the survivor as 33-year-old Engin Vural from Karaman province.
Amid speculation of al-Qaida involvement, Istanbul governor Muammer Guler, who blamed "a religious terrorist organisation", said that the amateurish nature of the attack bore little similarity to the November 2003 Istanbul truck bombings [see pp. 45750; 45708–09]. Radical Islamic fundamentalists in Turkey were thought to consider the Masons as supportive of US and Israeli policies.
Following the attack the police made several arrests. On March 16 they detained 12 al-...