Turkey in denial of al-Qaeda
threat By Rusen Cakir
While the Turkish government would
describe itself as a full participant in the "war
on terror", there is a tendency by the public to
view this conflict primarily as a struggle against
Kurdish militants, and only to a lesser extent
against al-Qaeda.
Nonetheless, two recent
events have linked Turkey and al-Qaeda. First,
according to a story in an Israeli daily, Israeli
intelligence recently warned of a possible
terrorist strike by al-Qaeda operatives against
Israeli institutions in Turkey. Second, in the
central Anatolian city of Aksaray, Turkish
authorities took 19
people into custody that were
suspected of links with al-Qaeda; five members of
this group were later arrested.
It is not
yet clear whether the Israeli intelligence reports
were accurate, though it is known that al-Qaeda
has previously planned attacks against Israeli
targets in Turkey. Al-Qaeda operatives who carried
out simultaneous suicide car bombings against the
Neve Shalom and Beth Israel Synagogues in Istanbul
on the morning of November 15, 2003, considered
their targets to be Israeli rather than Turkish,
even though the 27 initial victims were largely
Turkish Muslims.
At his court hearing,
Harun Ilhan - a top member of a Turkish al-Qaeda
cell and the mastermind of the Beth Israel bombing
- described Israel as the state of all Jews,
Judaism as "Zionism under the guise of religion",
and clearly stated that the synagogue bombings
were meant as a message to Israel [1].
Five days later, on November 20, 2003, the
same al-Qaeda cell detonated two additional trucks
at the HSBC Bank headquarters and the British
Consulate in Istanbul. Further investigations
revealed that Turkish militants in al-Qaeda
training camps in Afghanistan had organized a cell
before September 11, 2001, that the Istanbul
bombings were ordered directly by Osama bin Laden
and that preparations for these bombings were
carried out under the guidance of Muhammad Atef -
also known as Abu Hafs al-Misri - then leader of
al-Qaeda's military wing.
Initially, Atef
assigned two targets for the Turkish militants:
the Incirlik Air Base in Adana and an Israeli
tourist ship traveling to the southern port of
Antalya. The militants decided that it was
impossible to stage an assault on Incirlik, and
postponed an attack on the Israeli cruise ship due
to a lack of intelligence.
Two years after
the Istanbul bombings, Louai Muhammad Hajj Bakr
al-Saqa - an al-Qaeda operative of Syrian origin -
was arrested after a failed plot to attack an
Israeli cruise ship near Antalya. The court
accused al-Saqa of preparing for the operation by
purchasing a 6,000 euro (US$8,899) yacht called
Tufan that was to be filled with explosives,
making a $60,000 down payment on a villa in
Antalya's Beldibi district worth $350,000 and
obtaining a diver's submersible sea-scooter.
The plot was foiled when al-Saqa and a
Syrian accomplice were arrested after a bomb
accidentally exploded in an Antalya safe house
they were working in. When it became obvious that
al-Saqa - who could easily pass as Turkish due to
his fluency in the language - played a key role in
al-Qaeda's operations in Iraq, many began to think
that the terrorist organization had set a goal to
hit Israeli targets in Turkey.
According
to Yedioth Ahronoth, al-Qaeda is likely to have
infiltrated Turkey with some of its operatives for
this attack. Even though al-Qaeda has so far never
staged an attack on Turkish soil using non-Turkish
operatives, the al-Saqa incident shows that it
would be possible. Moreover, the 2003 Istanbul
bombings demonstrate that the network has the
capacity to recruit militants within Turkey,
primarily due to the growth of radical Islam there
since the 1980s. Over the years, many Turkish
youth have volunteered to fight with Islamist
groups in areas such as Afghanistan, Bosnia,
Chechnya, Kashmir and Ogaden [2]; in so doing,
some have developed a close relationship with
al-Qaeda.
Following the US occupation of
Iraq, there was a steady outflow of Turkish
volunteers ready to fight in the Iraqi insurgency.
Newspapers often report stories of Turkish
nationals who die in suicide attacks or in armed
combat. For instance, Habib Akdas - the ringleader
of the Istanbul bombings - was reportedly killed
in a US bombardment of al-Anbar province in
September 2004.
Similarly, it is claimed
that Gurcan Bac, another leading member of
al-Qaeda, died in a clash in Fallujah in 2005.
Lastly, a US Army spokesperson announced the
deaths of Mehmet Yulmaz and Mehmet Resit Isik in
Iraq's Hawiya region in June 2007. The
spokesperson stated that these individuals helped
foreign activists enter Iraq through Turkey.
Yulmaz, also known as "Halid al-Turki," was a top
leader of the organization while Isik was his
deputy.
Another report revealed that two
Turkish al-Qaeda militants, Sadettin Akdas - the
brother of Habib Akdas, who is suspected of
plotting the Istanbul bombings - and Burhan Kus,
escaped from the Abu Ghraib prison in April 2007.
In the wake of the Istanbul bombings,
groups linked to or inspired by al-Qaeda have been
the target of greater scrutiny by intelligence
organizations. However, as is the case in many
parts of the world, it is much harder to trace
small groups that have no direct link to al-Qaeda
than larger, better organized movements. For
example, on March 9, 2004, two Islamist youths -
Nihat Dogruel and Engin Vural - independently
sought to bomb 40 Masons congregating in the
Masonic Lodge in Istanbul's Kartal district;
Masons are considered to be pro-Zionist by many
Turkish Islamists. Security prevented the two from
deploying the bomb properly and, as a result, only
Dogruel and a waiter were killed, while Vural was
wounded and arrested. The activists had no direct
connection with al-Qaeda, but were clearly
inspired by the network.
Far from being
professional militants, Turks influenced by
al-Qaeda are generally ordinary citizens. One of
the suspects arrested in Aksaray was a high school
English teacher, and the other four were also
employed and socially integrated individuals. It
might also be worth noting that one of these
bombers - Ilyas Kuncak - had grandchildren.
Al-Qaeda-style militancy in Turkey continues to
attract individuals outside the usual profile of
young, single, unemployed/underemployed youths.
How Turkish public opinion views
al-Qaeda Turkey has witnessed attacks by a
variety of terrorist organizations for many years.
Its intelligence services and security forces are
therefore well-equipped and well-experienced in
counter-terrorism. Yet for several reasons, Turkey
is ill-prepared for a potential fight against
al-Qaeda.
Turkish counter-terrorism is overwhelmingly
focused on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
This organization has carried out armed offensives
against Turkish authorities since August 1984, and
revoked its latest ceasefire in 2004. Over the
past six months the overwhelming majority of
Turkey's security resources have been poured into
efforts to liquidate the PKK.
Turkish public opinion remains unconvinced of
the threat posed by al-Qaeda. Some believe that
this organization does not exist, having been
fabricated for manipulative purposes by countries
such as the United States and Israel. Others
accept that al-Qaeda is real, though do not view
it as an organization countering US and Israeli
hegemony, but rather as a tool used by these
countries to colonize the Middle East.
With Turkish-US relations strained as never
before, a larger number of Turks are inclined to
sympathize - or at least empathize - with
al-Qaeda's stated goal of combating US policies.
Turks do not see themselves as the primary
target of al-Qaeda. The Turkish public did not
react to the 2003 Istanbul bombings in the way the
general public in Madrid and London did to the
terrorist attacks that they sustained. Many
believe that it is impossible for al-Qaeda to
target Turkey, especially as the country is run by
a party with Islamist roots. Others subscribe to
the theory that al-Qaeda did not, in fact, target
Turkey in November 2003. According to this view,
the intended victims of the synagogue bombings
were Jews, and therefore a "concern" of Israel,
even though the victims were Turkish rather than
Israeli citizens. Similarly, attacks against the
British Consulate and HSBC Bank have been
dismissed as attacks upon Britain, though again,
most of those killed were actually Turks.
The enforced exclusion of Islamic
movements from the political process in
authoritarian and totalitarian regimes across the
Middle East makes al-Qaeda's job easier, while
Turkey has managed to integrate Islamic movements
into its political structure. The fact that the
Islam-based Justice and Development Party (AKP)
came to power through legitimate elections and has
been able to remain in power is testament to this
fact.
Yet there is nothing more logical
than for al-Qaeda to target Turkey on ideological
grounds, since - of all the countries in the
Islamic world - Turkey is the most modern, secular
and interconnected with the West. It is also the
only major Islamic country with the potential to
join the European Union. These characteristics
render Turkey a potential antithesis to the view
of Islam endorsed by al-Qaeda. Finally, Turkey is
currently the only majority Muslim country that is
a member of NATO, with Ankara having supported the
United States in its operations in Afghanistan
while for the most part following a pro-US policy
over the occupation in Iraq. All these factors
make Turkey and its citizens a genuine target for
al-Qaeda.
Notes 1. From
Harun Ilhan's 74-page unpublished and handwritten
defense document. 2. For biographies of
Turkish Islamists who died in these jihad
battlefields, see Mehmet Ali Tekin,
Sehidlerimiz (Our Martyrs), Volume 1
(Istanbul, 1999). The second volume could not be
published because the author was arrested during
an operation against radical Islamists linked to
Iran and was sentenced to 12 years and six months
in prison.
Rusen Cakir is a
senior correspondent for the Turkish daily Vatan
and has contributed to various other media
outlets, such as Milliyet and CNN-Turk.
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