Global hunt has limited success in capturing al-Qaida lead

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- The two suspected masterminds of the Istanbul suicide bombings are at large a year after the blasts in a scenario that's being played out around the world: police quickly make arrests, but often struggle for years to catch the organizers of terror attacks.

In this case, Turkish security forces say they have dismantled much of the network behind the bombings that killed some 60 people, but the leaders are thought to have fled to Iraq.

"What al-Qaida and other terrorist groups often do is make sure that the true masterminds leave the country or go underground" after an attack, said Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. "In general, the expendable foot soldiers remain."

Just look at Morocco, where police detained about 7,000 people after a May 16, 2003, string of bomb attacks killed at least 33 people in Casablanca. More than 700 remain behind bars; intelligence officials admit key suspects are on the run.

In Madrid, police haven't identified a mastermind behind the March 11 train attacks that killed 191 people. And in Kenya, where suicide bombers destroyed the U.S. Embassy in 1998, police have caught only one of four suspected ringleaders.

U.S. forces, backed by thousands of Pakistani soldiers, have so far failed to nab Osama bin Laden for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The al-Qaida leader feels so secure in hiding that he released a videotape last month warning Americans that the United States must stop threatening the security of Muslims if it wants to avoid "another Manhattan."

The Turkish crackdown after the Istanbul bombings illustrates the successes and the difficulties that security forces have in uprooting terrorist networks.

A year ago Saturday, suicide bombers slammed two trucks into the Istanbul headquarters of the London-based HSBC bank and the British Consulate. Five days earlier, truck bombs devastated two synagogues.

Police quickly found the owners of the trucks and checked the records of cell phones that had been used in the area of the attacks. That led to raids that netted hundreds of suspects nationwide.

Those detentions helped lead to the unraveling of the local terror network, including discovery of a detergent factory where the bombs were secretly loaded on the trucks and the detention of dozens of people believed to have been part of the supply network.

But Habib Akdas, believed to be the leader of the attack, and Gurcan Bac, the suspected chief bombmaker, fled to Iraq. Akdas left via Iran while Bac fled through Syria using a fake passport, officials said.

A half-dozen other suspects also are fugitives.

Some big captures

There have been some key successes in the war on terror.

Pakistani security forces captured Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but a year and a half after the attacks on New York and Washington.

His arrest followed that of his close associate, Ramzi Binalshibh, who is believed to have helped plan the Sept. 11 attacks. He was captured on Sept. 11, 2002, at a house in Karachi, Pakistan, after a shootout.

The capture of those leaders, along with the global crackdown. has helped isolate and fracture al-Qaida's leadership, leading to more decentralized operations, analysts say.

But al-Qaida also has proved capable of replacing those captured or killed.

"If one leader falls, they can replace him," Byman said.