Al-Qaeda's hand in Istanbul plot

Turks met with bin Laden

ISTANBUL - About a week before Sept. 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden sat down to a breakfast meeting in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. His Turkish guests had arrived with a plan for a spectacular terrorist strike, but according to accounts two of the visitors later gave investigators, there was no talk of business over the meal.Instead, bin Laden held forth for an hour about the injustices Muslims were suffering at the hands of Israel and the United States, standard motivational remarks tailored slightly for the occasion: He told the visitors that one of his grandmothers was Turkish. Afterward, outside the one-story house guarded by high walls and men with Kalashnikov rifles, it was al-Qaeda's military commander who gave the visitors $10,000 in cash and crucial words of guidance.



Read the rest of this fascinating story by following this link.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17123174/print/1/displaymode/1098/