Turkey foils bomb attack

Turkish police foiled a bomb attack in Ankara yesterday, the sixth anniversary of 9/11 attacks on the United States, averting what officials said would have been a disaster for the capital.

Ankara governor Kemal Onal said police had found a vehicle packed with explosives in a multi-storey car park in a central district of the city of four million. Shops and offices in the area were quickly evacuated.

"The police efforts prevented a possible disaster... It is too early to say who was behind this but the bomb was big and I do not want to think what might have happened if it had gone off," Mr Onal told reporters.

Private broadcaster NTV said police had found about 300 kilogrammes of explosives in the vehicle, a stolen mini-bus parked on the second floor of the car park.

The state Anatolian news agency said it took experts three hours to defuse the bomb.

Kurdish separatists, ultra-leftists and Islamist militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in recent years.

CNN Turk quoted police as saying the device found resembled those used in al Qaeda-backed suicide bomb attacks in November 2003 on two synagogues, the British Consulate and the HSBC bank in Istanbul. More than 60 people died in those attacks.

Mr Onal noted that September 11 and 12 were particularly sensitive days. The world yesterday remembered al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, while Turkey will mark the anniversary of its 1980 military coup today - a possible focus for leftist groups.

A US air base in western Germany received a bomb threat on Monday evening, prompting a large operation by local police and American forces to secure the site, police said yesterday.

The base received a call from a man who spoke in German with a Russian or Turkish accent and threatened to attack the air base in Spangdahlem with bombs.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden released a tape yesterday, praising one of the hijackers involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Bin Laden made a passing reference in his address to Ankara, but only to mention a historic event. He made no comment on the policies of modern Turkey, a Muslim but secular state and Nato member whose close links to the West make it a potential target for militant Islamists.

Meanwhile, Americans observed a moment of silence at the very hour and place of the first September 11 attack yesterday, the sixth anniversary of a day remembered with solemnity and ceremony.

Speaking near Ground Zero, where the twin World Trade Centre towers were destroyed by hijacked planes on September 11, 2001, mayor Michael Bloomberg told families of those who died: "Six years have passed and our place is still by your side".

Rain fell on the sombre ceremony as some wore funereal black to remember the 2,750 people killed when the towers were destroyed one after the other. Their names were due to be read out loud over four hours.

Similar ceremonies were taking place in Washington, where the Pentagon was attacked by a third plane, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where a fourth plane crashed after passengers fought with al Qaeda hijackers that day.

Bagpipes played, accompanied by a steady drum beat, in a New York city park neighbouring the former disaster site which is now a busy construction zone.

The first of four New York moments of silence - followed by the ringing of church bells - took place at 8.46 a.m. (1246 GMT), the hour the first plane struck. Other moments were set for when the second plane struck and when each tower fell.

September 11 fell on a Tuesday again for the first time since 2001, yet another reminder of the day.

The term 9/11 uses the American convention of enumerating the month before the date. In all, 2,993 people died, including the 19 hijackers.