Turkish police arrest 'bomber'

Turkish police have arrested a man who allegedly ordered and helped plan one of four suicide bombings that killed dozens of people in Istanbul earlier this month.

The suspect was arrested with a false identification card while trying to cross Turkey's border with Iran.

Sixty-one people were killed and hundreds injured in the bombing of the Beth Israel synagogue and similar truck bomb attacks on British and Jewish targets by Islamist militants in Turkey.

Halil Yilmaz, Istanbul's deputy police chief, announced the arrest: "He [the bomber] went to the Beth Israel synagogue area with the other attackers on the day of the explosion and gave the order for the attack," he said.

Turkish police and prosecutors took the unidentified man, who has not been formally charged, to the site of the ruined synagogue earlier on Saturday.

The bearded man, who looked in his mid-to-late-20s, stood handcuffed in a street outside the synagogue as he talked to police investigators and court officials.

He was among six people handed to Istanbul's State Security Court on Saturday. Three were later released.

There have also been anti-terrorism arrests in Italy and Germany. Italian police said on Friday they had smashed a network suspected of recruiting suicide bombers. German officers were understood to be questioning a suspected Algerian extremist who was arrested in the port of Hamburg on Friday at the request of Italian authorities.

Britons working in Saudi Arabia were also warned of the continuing threat of terrorist attacks in the kingdom. The Foreign Office posted a statement on the web site of the British Embassy in Riyadh, reminding people returning to work after the holy fasting month of Ramadan of the continuing dangers.

The statement came four days after Saudi officials said they had thwarted a planned strike by militants who had packed a car with more than a ton of explosives.

The news of the Turkish arrest comes on the same day as the funeral of one of three Britons killed in a separate terrorist attack last week on the British Embassy in Istanbul.

More than 200 people packed a small church in Ayrshire for the funeral of Nanette Elizabeth Kurma, a 41-year-old interpreter who died when suicide bombers attacked the offices of London-based bank HSBC and the British consulate.