Terrorists Storm Turkish Synagogue; 21 Worshippers Die in Suicide Attack

ISTANBUL, Turkey--Two Arab terrorists stormed Istanbul's main synagogue yesterday, killing 21 worshipers and wounding four with submachine-gun fire before blowing themselves up with hand grenades, officials said.

Interior Minister Yildirim Akbulut said the gunmen locked the synagogue's main door with an iron bar to keep worshipers from escaping and sprayed the congregation with bullets.

When police arrived, the terrorists detonated hand grenades and killed themselves, officials reported.

A teen-ager who survived the massacre but whose father perished said the terrorists doused some of the bodies with gasoline and set them afire. Police said seven bodies had been burned.

"When the shooting began, we all threw ourselves on the floor," 17-year-old Rafi Saul told Anatolia, Turkey's official news agency.

He was quoted as saying, "I pretended to be dead. But I lifted my head briefly to see what they were doing and saw them pouring gasoline on bodies" and then setting them on fire.

The grenade explosions made a charnel house of the Jewish house of prayer, where worshipers were arriving for Sabbath services. Dismembered bodies lay among wrecked rows of chairs. All the victims had been shot, Akbulut said.

Premier Turgut Ozal said after an emergency Cabinet meeting in Ankara, "This appears to have been a suicide commando mission."

"It's horrifying," Anatolia quoted Istanbul's deputy governor, Hasan Ali Ozer, as saying.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Bruce Ammerman said seven rabbis were reported among the dead and that Istanbul's chief rabbi, David Asseo, reportedly was wounded. Ammerman said U.S. authorities in Turkey were trying to determine if any Americans were killed or wounded.

Police sources said all the dead worshipers were Turkish men, and Akbulut said most were elderly. However, Anatolia said the dead included an unidentified visiting rabbi from Israel.

Akbulut told The Associated Press police found 102 spent cartridges on the floor of the Neve Shalom Synagogue. He said the assailants entered at about 9:20 a.m., secured the main door, then stood about 10 yards apart and began firing submachine guns into the congregation.

One of the injured reported the terrorists shouted in Arabic as they fired, Akbulut said.

He said the terrorists were killed by three hand grenades they detonated at close range. The legs and lower trunk of one terrorist were blown off by the explosion, he added.

Only four people who were in the building escaped harm, he said.

In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Shimon Peres said in an appearance on Israeli television, "Old people in the midst of their prayers, innocent people, were shot in cold blood...this time we have to take notice."