EU adds IBDA-C into terror list

BRUSSELS (AA) – A Turkish extremist group, IBDA-C, which claimed to have attacked British and Jewish interests in Istanbul last month causing 62 deaths, has been appended an European Union list of terrorist organisations, diplomatic sources said Tuesday.

The sources said the addition had been approved a while ago by EU experts who periodically revise the list.

IBDA-C — the Islamist Great Eastern Raiders’ Front — is a small Turkish radical group seeking to set up a radical Islamic Turkish state by force.

The 15 EU member-states endorsed its membership of the list during an environment ministers’ session on Monday, the sources said.

The main aim in including IBDA-C on the list is to have its assets in Europe frozen, they said.

Both IBDA-C and Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network claimed responsibility for the bomb attacks on the British consulate and the London-based HSBC bank in Istanbul last month.

IBDA-C also claimed responsibility for two attacks on synagogues in Istanbul on November 15.

A Turkish court last year sentenced its leader Salih Izzet Erdis, alias Salih Mirzabeyoglu, to death, but sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

The EU blacklist was opened late 2001, following the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

It is revised regularly and includes Palestinian radical groups such as Hamas.