Turkish news organizations reported Tuesday that two suspects in the suicide bombings that rocked Istanbul last month took direct orders from a senior Qaeda leader, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, after meeting him earlier this year. The reports came a day after Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Abdullatif Sener, told reporters that the suicide bombers and their associates “are linked to Al Qaeda,” the strongest assertion yet by a Turkish government official that the bombings were the work of the terrorist network. Reliable information about the investigation into the bombings has been spotty because of a government ban. Turkish news reports on the case are based on leaked information, some of which has already proved inaccurate. The whereabouts of Dr. Zawahiri, an Egyptian-born surgeon who merged his own militant force with that of Osama bin Laden in 1998, have been uncertain since late in 2001 when he was in Afghanistan. Full Story
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