ISTANBUL, TURKEY — The electronic buzzer sounded, and the gaggle of gangly 14- and 15-year-old boys jumped up, scattering pumpkin seeds they'd been cracking between their teeth. Their brief break was over; now they had to hurry back to their jobs in the textile factory.
In the impoverished enclave of Kucukcekmece, on the far fringes of Istanbul, the three young attackers who died trying to storm the U.S. Consulate on Wednesday lived within a few blocks of one another in ramshackle, illegally constructed homes known by the evocative Turkish term gecekondu -- built overnight.
Two of the three attackers had worked in a textile factory similar to this one, in keeping with the neighborhood pattern of school dropouts trying to help support large families that have relocated from the countryside. Their labor provides a short-term economic boost but leaves them without education or prospects.
The drab, run-down district where the attackers lived is a world apart from the deep-blue Bosporus, the chic cafes, the minarets and monuments of tourist Istanbul, though the city center is only a 40-minute drive away. Tens of thousands of economic migrants from Turkey's poorest corners have come here to seek better lives. Often, they find only greater hardship.
Neighbors and relatives of the assailants said they did not understand why the three did what they did.
But the backgrounds and profiles provided in official accounts appeared strikingly similar to those of young men involved in previous Al Qaeda-inspired attacks in Turkey: largely uneducated, poor, not known to be religiously devout until they found themselves in contact with a charismatic "elder brother."
One of them, 23-year-old Bulent Cinar, was a former goat herder with only a grade school education, police said.
None of those spoken to in the neighborhood questioned the official account, confirmed by witnesses and security cameras, of the three men leaping from a vehicle late Wednesday morning and spraying bullets at Turkish police guarding the fortresslike U.S. complex.
Three police officers died; the attackers were swiftly gunned down as well. Turkish authorities said that by late Friday, 10 people had been arrested and that more arrests were likely.
Those being held included the alleged driver of the getaway vehicle, who reportedly told police he was merely hired to drive and did not know of the men's plans until the shooting erupted, when he sped away.
