ISIS'
Turkish Brothers
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the first of
your friends to like this.
|
A
March 26 bomb explosion at Adımlar Magazine headquarters in
Istanbul left a columnist dead and 3 others wounded.
|
Most Turks had not heard of the magazine Adimlar ["Steps"]
until March 26, when a bomb blast ripped through its Istanbul offices. A
bomb left at its entrance exploded when the door opened, killing a writer
and wounding three, including its editor-in-chief, Ali Osman Zor. The
dead victim was his brother.
Last October, CNN interviewed Zor, who described himself as an
"Islamic revolutionary" and a member of the Great Eastern
Islamic Raiders' Front, or IBDA-C in its Turkish acronym. He spent time
in prison on charges of terrorist activity. In the interview, Zor said he
supported the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), including its
extreme violent practices, and argued that the radical group's violence
was a natural response to what he claimed were decades of Western
imperialism in the Middle East.
The police have not yet announced any suspect for the bombing, but a
magazine staffer unsurprisingly told
CNN: "We know this to be the work of CIA and Mossad. We know
this is an intelligence operation."
The IBDA-C is inspired by Turkish
Islamist poet Necip Fazil Kisakurek's "Great East" ideology.
|
The bombing refreshed Turkey's bitter memories about a dark episode:
its own 'ISIS" that started to operate (well, to bomb and kill)
several years before Arab jihadists established their Iraqi-Syrian
version.
Ironically, the Turkish IBDA-C is an ideological inspiration by an
Islamist poet who happens to be President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's
favorite. IBDA-C was formed as an armed wing of poet Necip Fazil
Kisakurek's "Great East" ideology, which aims to establish a
federal Islamic state.
The Turks had their first shock from IBDA-C in August 1993, when, a
month after radical Islamists staged an arson attack at a hotel in
central Anatolia, killing more than 30 writers and intellectuals, the
group's now-defunct Taraf magazine wrote an editorial that said:
"From now on life in Turkey will be difficult for the occupying
seculars."
Later, in a bombing attack for which IBDA-C claimed responsibility,
the group killed a three-year-old boy and injured 25 people. IBDA-C had
attacked a book fair where, among all the others, Christian missionaries
exhibited their books. IBDA-C declared 1999 the "Islamic Revolution
Year," and assassinated a prominent academic, Ahmet Taner Kislali.
It also allegedly helped
al-Qaeda with two bomb attacks in Istanbul in 2003.
|
President
Erdogan has a strong affinity for Turkish Islamist poet Necip Fazil
Kisakurek.
|
IBDA-C's leader, Salih Mirzabeyoglu, was imprisoned in 1998 for a life
sentence. But last July, twelve years after Erdogan came to power and
consolidated his grip on the judiciary, a high court in Istanbul quietly
released Mirzabeyoglu, pending retrial.
The paths of Erdogan, Mirzabeyoglu and Kisakurek, the poet, had
crossed many times before. Both Erdogan and Mirzabeyoglu come from the
ranks of Turkish Islamist ideology, known as Milli Gorus ["National
View"]. When Kisakurek first met the 15-year-old Mirzabeyoglu, he
excitedly remarked: "This is the voice I have been looking for in
the last 40 years!"
Erdogan is well known for his habit of publicly reciting Kisakurek's
poems. One of the pro-Erdogan newspapers, Star, awards literature
prizes in the poet's name. Attending last year's ceremony, Erdogan
generously praised
Kisakurek, IBDA-C's principal inspiration: "Even today, Necip Fazil
[Kisakurek] is a fortune for Turkey, for the young generations and for
the [Islamist] struggle."
In 2012, Erdogan quoted
a line from Kisakurek's "Oration to Youth," which praises a
youth that "claims its religion, language, brain, science, home,
purity and hatred." Erdogan came under fire for calling up a youth
that harbors "hatred" against apparently non-Islamist enemies.
Is it still too hard to understand why Erdogan's "fight"
against radical Islamists in Syria and Iraq cannot be serious? Re-read
his quote from his favorite poet and think again. Think, also, why the
Turkish IBDA-C leader may have been released from jail, why his life
sentence for terrorism was abruptly suspended, and why he will be granted
retrial. Then read once again why IBDA-C's magazine, Adimlar, is a
staunch supporter of ISIS. Finally, note how Turkey's political
demographics have progressed in line with Erdogan's (and Kisakurek's)
wishes: "a youth that claims its religion, language, brain, science,
home, purity and hatred."
In August 2014, the Turkish polling company MetroPOLL found
that 11.3% of Turks did not view ISIS as a terrorist organization. That
is in no way a marginal figure. If a "mere" 11.3% of Turks
think so generously of ISIS, it means there are nearly nine million Turks
sympathetic to jihadists. And if only 10% of those decide to support
ISIS's jihad, that comes to nearly 900,000 potential Turkish jihadists
(even 5% would mean an army of nearly 450,000).
Those are ISIS's Turkish brothers.
Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is
a columnist for the Turkish daily Hürriyet and a fellow at the Middle East
Forum.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment