Asia Time Online - Daily News
Jan 17, 2008
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.
(This article first appeared in The Jamestown
Foundation. Used with permission.)
(Copyright 2008 The Jamestown Foundation.)
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© Copyright 1999 - 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings), Ltd.
---------------
Jusfiq Hadjar gelar Sutan Maradjo Lelo
Allah yang disembah orang Islam tipikal dan yang digambarkan oleh al-Mushaf itu
dungu, buas, kejam, keji, ganas, zalim lagi biadab hanyalah Allah fiktif.
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