Turks Nab Suspected Blast Kingpin

Police arrested a man suspected of ordering one of four deadly suicide bombings that killed more than 60 people earlier this month, officials said Saturday.

Istanbul Deputy Police Chief Halil Yilmaz said the man was arrested Tuesday while trying to leave Turkey through a border crossing with Iran. The man, whom he did not identify, made plans for the Beth Israel attack and ordered it, Yilmaz said. He has not been formally charged.

Yilmaz said investigators brought the man to the wrecked Beth Israel synagogue early Saturday as part of the ongoing investigation into the bombing of that and another synagogue, Neve Shalom, on Nov. 15. Those suicide truck bombings, along with the Nov. 20 bombing of the British Consulate and a British bank, killed 61 people — including the four bombers — and injured 712.

Twenty people have been charged in the bombings, police said.

Earlier Saturday, private NTV television showed the man — bearded, handcuffed and appearing to be in his 20s — at Beth Israel speaking to an investigator. He was surrounded by police officers.

"It is understood that the arrested person carried out intelligence gathering on Beth Israel synagogue prior to the attack, went to the location with other accomplices on the day of the attack and ordered the attack," Yilmaz said.

Yilmaz said the man was arrested after investigators received intelligence that he planned to flee Turkey using a fake ID and passport.

Turkish authorities have identified the synagogue bombers as Mesut Cabuk and Gokhan Elaltuntas, both from the impoverished town of Bingol in the Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey. The consulate and bank bombers have yet to be officially identified.

Private CNN-Turk television said police detained Cabuk's wife in southeast Turkey and brought her to Istanbul on Saturday for questioning.

Turkish officials have said all four suicide bombers were Turkish nationals. Newspapers have said some of them could have been trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan or Iran.

Turkish authorities have imposed a news blackout on the investigations, but newspapers have largely defied the ban, printing a steady stream of reports about the ongoing investigation.