A large-scale Al Qaeda plot to bomb “all the churches in Ankara,” as well as the Turkish Parliament and U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital, was made public today.

Prepared and filed by the Special Prosecutor’s Office in Ankara, the 50-page indictment outlined the militants’ revised “jihad” strategy to begin focusing their attacks against Turkey before waging war against the United States and other countries.

The Turkish government made a historic U-turn in state policy this past weekend, issuing an official decree inviting Turkey’s Christian and Jewish communities to reclaim their long-confiscated religious properties.

The return of these extensive properties to their rightful owners has been a key demand of the European Union (EU), to which Turkey is applying for full membership.

In simultaneous operations in nine different provinces of Turkey, authorities yesterday arrested 20 people suspected of playing a role in the murder of three Christians in 2007.

The chief prosecutor overseeing the investigation into a clandestine network known as Ergenekon allegedly aimed at destabilizing the government, ordered the arrests based on information that linked the suspects to both the network and to the Malatya murders.

Turkish Christians fear those responsible for murdering three Christian publishers will not face justice.

They also fear that authorities will be unable to tackle “structural injustice” towards the country’s Christian minority, trial observers said.

Knife-wielding attackers slit the throats of three people at a Christian publishing house in conservative eastern Turkey yesterday.

Suspicion of Christianity has roots deep in Ottoman history and was heightened by later efforts of European powers to carve up the waning empire and give Christians more rights.

The Italian judge who investigated the 1981 murder attempt on John Paul II has warned the Turkish would-be assassin that his life will be "in grave danger" when he is released from jail because he "knows too much".

A Turkish court has approved the release of the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, saying that he has completed his prison term.