The remains of Mesut Cabuk and Gokhan Elaltuntas have been buried in shame at dead of night in their Turkish hometown.
Relatives said nobody but close family attended the funerals of the two suicide bombers, who killed 25 people when they drove truckspacked with explosives at two Istanbul synagogues.
This deeply conservative, devoutly Muslim town, 800 km (500 miles) from Istanbul's urban buzz and sophistication, has long been a breeding ground for radical Islamism.
But relatives of the four Bingol men named as the bombers in modern Turkey's worst week of peacetime bloodshed say they are now ostracised by their neighbours and scrutinised by police.
"There is a wall between the public and us," said one family member, who like most of the relatives asked not to be named.
More than 50 people were killed and more than 700 injured in the two waves of suicide blasts that hit Turkey's vibrant commercial capital on November 15 and 20.
The Turkish government has named Cabuk and Elaltuntas as the first bombers, targeting synagogues during Sabbath prayers. Turkish media say Azad Ekinci and Feridan Ugurlu carried out last Thursday's attacks on the British consulate and HSBC Bank.
All four were from the mainly ethnic Kurdish town of Bingol in Turkey's poor and isolated south-east.
Bingol, a town of 200,000, has endured both devastating earthquake and years of clashes between Turkish security forces and Kurdish
guerrillas fighting for an independent state.
But the force that drove the bombers appears to have been not Kurdish nationalism but radical Islamism aligned with the anti-Western
ideology of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
MOSQUES AND HEADSCARVES
Bingol is peppered with mosques and Koranic schools[Otherwise called "madrassas."--Jen]. Most women wear strict all-encompassing, Islamic-style dress.
No alcohol is on sale in any of the town's shops or restaurants, the latter all closed in the daytime during the Muslim fasting month of
Ramadan which is now just ending.
It is also dirt poor -- a far cry from the gleaming shopping malls and fashionable bars of Istanbul. Unemployment is high and nearly half the
town's women cannot read.
Bingol and other towns like it have been seedbeds for radical Islamist guerrilla groups such as Hizbullah and the organisation that claimed
joint responsibility with al Qaeda for the blasts, the Islamic Great Eastern Raiders Front (IBDA-C).
"In Bingol the children grow up with a strong religious background and education, and some sects have a great impact on public thinking,"
said worker Yusuf Derin. "These children are becoming natural agents for illegal organisations."
An army officer based in the town said the military there had focused mainly on fighting the Kurdish separatist group PKK, also known as
KADEK, and was then distracted by an earthquake in May that killed at least 167 people.
"We switched our efforts to the quake, so Hizbullah got the chance to act more freely," he said.
But most Bingol residents are quick to distance themselves from violence that many Muslims condemn as un-Islamic.
"This event saddens our people in Bingol," said another resident, Abdullatif Yildiz.
Mark how greatly this contrasts with the funerals of "Palestinian" suicide bombers in the West Bank and Gaza; it gives me lots of hope for the Turkish people that they don't glorify the killers as "heroes" and "martyrs."
Most of the residents of Bingol sound like decent, good people so I suggest that PM Erdogan spend some money, time and effort on economic and cultural development here such that it stops being a hotbed for Islamist terror and their cult of death and starts being fertile ground to grow the potential of these Turks to contribute in a positive way to human life and happiness.
