Terror upstages Bush-Blair visit

Terrorist attacks in Istanbul Thursday completely upstaged President Bush's state visit to London, serving as a chilling reminder to his hosts that Britain is a prime target of terrorists.

Protesters gathering in the tens of thousands Thursday to vent their anger at Mr. Bush's Iraq campaign said the blasts in Turkey merely reinforced their point: that the campaign against terrorism wasn't working.

The blasts were probably timed to coincide with the Bush visit, analysts say, but were conducted at a distance because of the tight security in London. With Britain now a clear target, they add, Prime Minister Tony Blair is likely to come under increasing pressure over his close alliance with Bush - particularly as the US president offered him few concessions on secondary issues that divide the two countries.

Both leaders immediately vowed not to flinch in the face of such attacks. At a press conference just hours after the attacks, they robustly rejected arguments that both countries had brought such tragedies upon themselves through their tactics since Sept. 11 - most notably the war in Iraq.

"We must affirm that in the face of this terrorism there must be no holding back, no compromise, no hesitation in confronting this menace, in attacking it whenever and wherever we can and in defeating it utterly," Mr. Blair said.

"There may be some who think Britain would gain from standing back from this struggle, even some who think we and the United States and our allies have brought this upon ourselves," he said.

But, he continued: "What has caused the attack today in Turkey is not the president of the USA, is not the alliance between America and Britain, what is responsible ... [it] is terrorism, the terrorists, and our response has got to be ... to say we are going to defeat you and we are not going to back down and flinch from this struggle."

President Bush added: "Today we saw their ambitions of murder. Cruelty is part of their strategy; the terrorists hope to intimidate, they hope to demoralize. They are not going to succeed. Great Britain, America, and other free nations are united in our determination to fight and defeat this evil wherever it is found."

Police, who said that British interests had certainly been a target in the attacks, said they would send units to Istanbul to help with the investigation. Consul General Roger Short was killed in the blast. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said "three or four" consulate staff were unaccounted for.

A spokeswoman for the British Bank HSBC confirmed that two of the bank's buildings had been hit and that there had been fatalities in the vicinity, and said the bank was "extremely concerned for safety of staff and customers." She would not elaborate.

In preparation for the Bushes' arrival on Tuesday, British police threw a ring of steel around London, with more than 5,000 officers primarily there to marshall street protests by tens of thousands of people, but also on the look out for rogue elements in the crowds.

"Everybody was braced for something to happen coinciding with the Bush visit to the UK to demonstrate hostility towards Britain," says Rosemary Hollis, of the Royal Institute for International Affairs. "It would certainly be a way of avoiding having to deal with the security in London to hit softer targets in Turkey."

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