PARIS, Nov 21: Newspapers in several countries expressed fears on Friday that Europe had become a front line in a global war on terrorism, a day after 27 people died and more than 450 were injured in two massive suicide bombings on British targets in Turkey.

“The front has widened. The attacks in Istanbul target Europe,” the left-leaning French daily Liberation said.

“Bin Laden’s time bombs will one day or another be launched against Berlin or Paris, as they have against New York or Istanbul,” it added.

Several editorialists said Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network must not be allowed to drive Turkey — the only Muslim member of NATO and a candidate for membership of the European Union — out of the Western camp.

“The terrorists wanted to create chaos in a Muslim country that has one foot in the West,” the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter said.

“Now is the time to led Turkey moral support,” said the conservative German daily Die Welt.

“Turkey is on our side, the right side, in this global war waged by murderous ‘religious fighters’. It must sense that, and we must show it.”

Germany’s largest-selling tabloid, Bild, spoke to the country’s two million Turkish immigrants, in a front-page message in Turkish saying: “Dear Turkish fellow citizens, we share your grief.”

Russia’s opposition daily Kommersant said “Turkey is a window on the West in the Muslim world (...) This does not suit the Islamists who consider it their country.”

The headline in Moscow’s pro-government Vremya Novostei — “Today Turkey, tomorrow everywhere” — echoed the fear that the front in the terror war had broadened, but it laid the blame partly on the policies of the United States.

“The war in Iraq only made the situation worse,” it said, a view shared by the centre-right Spanish daily El Mundo.

US President George W. Bush “is wrong to fight terrorism with the American military machine,” it said. “Bush’s diagnosis is correct, but his remedy makes the sickness worse.”

Another Spanish paper, the left-of-centre El Pais, agreed that US military actions had failed to make the world safer.

“The most disturbing conclusion from this new bloodbath is that al-Qaeda can act at will,” it said. The conservative French daily Le Figaro concurred, saying: “The enemy today seems to have gained the upper hand.”

The top-selling Greek daily pro-government Ta Nea said the bombings in Istanbul came as a particular warning to Athens, which is to host next year’s Olympic Games.

“The Athens 2004 Olympics are certainly a potential terrorist target,” it said.—AFP