...But beneath the smiles and genuine hospitality they extend to individual foreigners, the citizens of Konya, like those in many Turkish cities and towns, are boiling with anger at the United States, Britain, Israel, and Western civilization in general. They reject the tactics of the suicide bombers who killed 58 people in four massive explosions in Istanbul last month, but express understanding of the bombers' rage.

"I am so sorry for those bombings in Istanbul," said Ali Kernic, 53, as he sat in a friend's electrical shop on Door to the Mosque Street, a neighborhood where the signs are in Arabic, not Turkish, and the names of many businesses have religious connotations. "The suicide bombers have been hurt by the United States and other forces. They are a little sick in the mind. They've lost sons, daughters, and wives, and they take revenge. Islam rejects terrorism."

Such sentiments, and the Islamicized and Arabized environment in which they are expressed, mark an ominous turn of events for the United States and its allies. Sentiments like Kernic's are common in the Arab world, but Turkey, whose people are not Arab, has long been considered the model of a moderate Muslim society capable of bridging the immense cultural gap between the Islamic Middle East and the Judeo-Christian West.

Recent interviews in Konya, widely regarded as the capital of Islam in Turkey; in Ankara, the national capital; and in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, indicate that major changes -- some of which have been gestating for decades -- are taking place in Turkish society. Turkish Muslims' attitudes have taken a sharp anti-Western, anti-American turn, and some fear a dangerous new outpost of international terror is being established among the nation's 70 million people.

"There is no friendship between the Islamic world and the rest of the world," said Konya's longtime mayor, Mustafa Ozkafa, who describes himself as a very conservative Muslim. "The relationship between the Islamic world and the Western world will end soon" as a result of efforts by people on both sides -- but mostly on the Western side, he said -- to arrange a clash of civilizations...

She noted that top government officials have stopped using terms associating Islamic militants with terror since a recent speech by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which he said that "the expression `Islamic terror' offends me."

Officials now speak of "religionist terror" and refer far less often to Hezbollah connections to the bombings than they did in the days immediately following the blasts, domestic and foreign analysts note. Also, three leading anti-Hezbollah police commanders recently were transferred to cities with no known militant activities. The government said the transfers were part of a routine rotation that involved a total of 28 top police officials.

"The voters want an Islamic life," said Mehmet Buyukari, bureau chief in Konya for the national Dogan News Agency. "They are not sorry that there are no operations against Hezbollah. . . . Hezbollah is only the visible part of this story."