Turkey denies turning blind eye to ISIL as bombing stokes anger
Is the government responsible for the ISIL attack?
A patient, who smoke and drink heavily, who was very much overweight and who was leading a stressful life, had a heart attack.
After the heart attack he was talking to his doctor: “Doctor, I cannot understand how this happened to me. I just started leading a healthy life. I just started to run every day.”
Well, the reaction by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and its supporters to the latest Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attack in Suruç is very similar to this patient’s way of thinking. They think they cannot be held responsible for this attack in Suruç, just because the police started to arrest some ISIL militants recently.
If the patient had started to run before putting on that much weight and if he did not smoke that much, he could have benefited. Likewise, if the AK Party government had previously taken preventive measures against ISIL, these last arrests could have helped the struggle against this bloodthirsty group. However, after making so many mistakes, taking ISIL militants into custody is same as this overweight chain smoker starting to run all of a sudden. The patient had a heart attack and Turkey had this massacre in Suruç that killed 32 and left hundreds of others wounded.
Well, as most objective observes would agree, Turkey’s Syria policy — by raising jihadist forces and ISIL to prominence — has a particular importance in the current state of the Syrian civil war.
Look at what Turkey did after Tel Abyad was captured by the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), the military extension of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is the dominant political entity in the Kurdish regions of Syria. The Turkish military was put on high alert when the YPG recaptured this town from ISIL. There was no threat when our border was held by ISIL but when Kurds gained control over this town there was suddenly a great danger to Turkey!
Fear of Kurds and obsession of overthrowing Syrian president Basha al-Assad has driven the AK Party’s policies towards ISIL and jihadist movements in Syria.
Unfortunately, right now we do not have an independent judiciary which can thoroughly investigate allegations of AK Party government support for ISIL. But even if there was truth in just a few of the allegations , I would say the AK Party should be held responsible for the Suruç attack and any other attack that could be carried out in Turkey by ISIL from now on.
An article by David L. Phillips published in the Huffington Post with the title “Research Paper: ISIS [ISIL]-Turkey List” gives an exhaustive list of the allegations of the Turkish government’s links to ISIL. These allegations range from hospitalizing ISIL militants to directly arming them.
Today, Ahmet Davutoğlu called upon everyone to fight against ISIL together. If he is genuine in his call, first of all he should make promise that all allegations about supporting or turning a blind eye toward ISIL activities would be independently and impartially investigated, let alone making an in-depth inquiry how this latest attack in Suruç happened.
These youngsters who were killed in Suruç were carrying toys to Kobani and they became victims of bloody terrorist attack by a suicide bomber. Justice cannot be served unless the mastermind of these attacks, their supporters and those who ignore ISIL activities in Turkey are held accountable.
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist/orhan-kemal-cengiz/is-the-government-responsible-for-the-isil-attack_394210.html
in-turkey_394110.html
AK Party gov’t under fire for intelligence failure over fatal Suruç bombing
July 21, 2015, Tuesday/ 18:22:12/ AYDIN ALBAYRAK/ ALİ ASLAN KILIÇ/ / ANKARA
The crowd protested the deputy chairman of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), Nureddin Nebati and AK Party deputies in Suruç, Şanlıurfa. (Photo: DHA)
July 21, 2015, Tuesday/ 18:22:12/ AYDIN ALBAYRAK/ ALİ ASLAN KILIÇ/ / ANKARA
The government’s failure to prevent a bloody attack in which more than 30 people lost their lives in the southeastern town of Suruç reveals a failure in intelligence and a long history of negligence.
Security measures were supposed to be at the highest level in Suruç, which — being a town in the province of Şanlıurfa on the Syrian border, just 10 kilometers from the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani — came to public attention when evidence of the presence of ISIL terrorists was found in the town.
Last month, Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) issued a warning that the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was planning to carry out suicide bomb attacks in Turkey.
“This is first of all the result of a failure in intelligence,” security analyst Professor Sedat Laçiner told Today’s Zaman on Tuesday. Negligence by the government is a major factor in the bloody bombing, in which 32 people have so far lost their lives, given that there were many previous indications that ISIL had terrorist cells in Turkish provinces along the Syrian border. In addition, the bombing came after several others in areas near Syria, such as a recent incident in Diyarbakır and another Reyhanlı in 2012.
According to Laçiner, a professor of international relations, Turkey is suffering from more than just a simple failure in intelligence, given that such bombings have started to take place relatively frequently in recent years in Turkey. Underlining that such a situation is not acceptable, Laçiner criticized the fact that MİT staff enjoy legal protection in such a way that renders the intelligence organization practically unaccountable, unless the government wishes to intervene.
More than 100 people were wounded in the bombing in Suruç on Monday by a suicide bomber believed to be linked with ISIL.
Laçiner added: “An institution that is not subject to [public] monitoring becomes rotten. Turkey is today paying the price of policies that have made its most important institutions rotten.”
According to a report in the Hürriyet daily on Tuesday, the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) sent an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to the region after the blast to assess possible involvement by ISIL. Three UAVs have so far been deployed in the region, the report added.
The government has long been accused by the opposition of lending support to ISIL, which has been fighting the Syrian government in the war-torn country. Turkish media reported in February that MİT had warned the security forces that ISIL members were preparing to stage bombings in major cities in Turkey. According to the reports, MİT said that some 3,000 ISIL militants had infiltrated Turkey in 2015. The government has also been sharply criticized for purposefully neglecting border security with Syria, making it possible for terrorist groups fighting against the Syrian government to easily travel through Turkey.
Hasan Şeşeoğulları, the deputy chairman of the pro-Kurdish Rights and Freedoms Party (HAK-PAR), believes that the country’s intelligence units may even have been involved in the massacre. Claiming that the region in which Suruç is located is under the tight control of the security forces, Şeşeoğulları told Today’s Zaman, “I’m not sure if this is a result of a failure in intelligence or a carefully plotted act.”
In recent months, Turkish authorities announced several times that ISIL terrorists had either caught or had surrendered to security forces in the region. MİT warned last month that ISIL was preparing to organize attacks in Turkey by eight suicide bombers, one of them a woman. According to reports in Turkish media, MİT said the suicide bombings would hit predominantly Kurdish towns.
In February this year, the chief of the TSK’s General Staff said in a statement that an ISIL terrorist with a gun had surrendered in Suruç.
HAK-PAR’s Şeşeoğulları sees those in power, who he accuses of failing to prevent the attack, as bearing the main responsibility for the loss of life. Noting that similar attacks took place in recent years, the government could have prevented the Suruç massacre if it had really wished to do so, Şeşeoğulları argued.
CHP calls on interior minister, MİT head to resign
Haluk Koç, the spokesperson of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), has accused the government of providing logistical support to terrorist groups in Syria and called on the government to bring those responsible for the tragedy to account.
Turkey has become a target for terrorist groups because there is no security on the country’s Syria border, Koç argued in a press meeting on Tuesday.
Furthermore, CHP Deputy Chairman Veli Ağbaba, who flew to Suriç following the tragedy, has called on the interior minister and the head of MİT to resign. Calling on the government to assume responsibility for the disaster, Ağbaba told reporters in Suruç on Tuesday: “There must be consequences. MİT has been already politicized. The Undersecretary [Hakan Fidan] should immediately resign, as should interim Interior Minister [Sebahattin Öztürk].”
Ağbaba also said that the bombing is a result of the country’s Syrian policy, as a result of which the government offers support to rebel groups in Syria in the hope that they will topple the Syrian government. The CHP deputy chairman also said that previous massacres in the towns of Reyhanlı and Cilvegözü should not be forgotten.
Four people lost their lives in two bomb blasts in early June in Diyarbakır, a predominantly Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey. It was claimed following the attack, which took place just before the beginning of an election rally by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), that a suspect arrested in relation to the attack had been taken off technical surveillance by the police on the day the attack occurred.
Hasip Kaplan, a HDP deputy, has called on the government to admit responsibility for the Suruç bombing, saying that it clearly reveals a failure in intelligence and security. Speaking to the Internet Haber news portal, Kaplan said, “It is highly questionable how such an attack to take place in a town where the number of police officers is very high.”
In a blast at the Turkish-Syrian border gate of Cilvegözü in 2013, 14 people including three Turkish citizens were killed and around 30 people were injured. In yet another bombing in 2013 in the town of Reyhanlı in Hatay province on the Syrian border, 53 people were killed and 140 injured.
Has ISIL begun to feel the heat in Turkey?
It is hard to verify whether recent police raids on suspected members of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) reflect the government’s determination to fight against the terrorist organization, or whether the raids are merely window dressing.
According to the latest reports, police have detained 21 suspected members of ISIL, three of whom are foreign, during separate operations carried out on July 10 in various Turkish cities, and have shut down a pro-ISIL media outle
Around 100 suspected members of ISIL were reportedly captured in Turkey over the span of one month, in various operations conducted by police. These reports were followed by a new wave of arrests that took place close to the Syrian border. The Turkish General Staff reported in a press release on Sunday that border troops have detained 488 people trying to enter Turkey from Syria and 26 attempting to enter Syria illegally. The press release neither revealed the nationalities of those arrested nor whether they are suspected members of ISIL.
Turkey is frequently used as a transit route for foreign fighters heading into Syria to join extremist groups, most notably ISIL. Whether it is a coincidence or not, reports of police operations against suspected members of ISIL were published during the recent visit of a large US delegation to Ankara for talks on ISIL-related topics. The US has long urged Turkey to take tougher measures against suspected members of ISIL inside the country and to prevent the suspects from entering Syria through Turkey.
Meanwhile, from a threat that ISIL made against Turkey on July 15 via darülhilafe.com, a website broadcasting pro-ISIL propaganda in Turkish, we can understand that police have caught suspected members of ISIL after shutting down similar websites in recent raids. ISIL called for the Turkish government to stop blocking pro-ISIL websites and arresting individuals suspected of being ISIL members.
Still, it is hard to know whether the government’s increasingly frequent operations actually target ISIL militants, or whether these people are being caught by coincidence in police raids against other illegal organizations.
One reason to be suspicious of the government’s determination to fight ISIL is its alleged support for this and other organizations fighting in Syria, such as the al-Nusra Front. The government has long been criticized by both its allies and by opposition parties for turning a blind eye to ISIL’s growth inside Turkey and to the frequency with which militants enter Syria through its borders.
The government has become so obsessed with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad that it is suspected of supporting extremist groups in the hope that they will be able to overthrow the Syrian government. However, this has not happened, and, supported by Russia, China and Iran, the Assad regime has survived a civil war lasting more than four years.
Turkey fears possible ISIL attacks inside the country. However, whether the fact that police did not stop supporters of ISIL from praying in İstanbul on Sunday stemmed from the fear of possible attacks within the country or from the government’s tolerance of the group is unclear. It has been reported in the press that the prayer was led by Halis Bayancuk, also known as Abu Hanzala, allegedly one of the highest-ranking members of al-Qaeda, a group linked to ISIL, in Turkey. Bayancuk was freed after being detained in raids against al-Qaeda cells in Turkey in January of last year, with no indictment brought against him.
We can also measure the government’s sincerity in its raids against suspected ISIL members or sympathizers in Turkey based on whether the suspects are interrogated and, when necessary, imprisoned. In most cases, the public is left in the dark regarding whether these suspects have gone through the judicial process. That Bayancuk was let go, and felt comfortable making a speech during a prayer ceremony in İstanbul, is either proof of the government’s tolerance of ISIL or proof of its fear.
There are an estimated 7,000 ISIL sympathizers in Turkey, all with the potential to become terrorists. ISIL’s comfort in Turkey has possibly been shaken recently, but the group has been allowed to grow in strength in the country over the years, with the threat posed by its existence becoming harder to eliminate.
The more this comfort is shaken, meanwhile, the more likely the group is to follow through with its threats. An explosion at a cultural center on Monday that killed dozens in the southeastern town of Suruç, near the Syrian border, is, for instance, suspected to have been carried out by ISIL.
It is the Turkish people who pay the price for the government’s ill-conceived policies on Syria.
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist/lale-kemal/has-isil-begun-to-feel-the-heat-in-turkey_394110.html
CHP calls for parliamentary investigation
(EMRULLAH BAYRAK, ANKARA)
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has demanded that a parliamentary investigation be launched to find out who is behind the bloody attack in Suruç and for the development of an all-round strategy to fight against the terrorist group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
In the proposal submitted to Parliament on Tuesday, the CHP accuses the government of a failure in intelligence, in providing security along the Syrian border since the beginning of the civil war in Syria and in putting in place proper security measures inside Turkey. ISIL has a widespread presence in Turkey because of the security failure, the proposal claimed.
Noting that not only had many reports appeared in recent months in the media but that it had come up on numerous occasions in Parliament that ISIL was preparing to carry out terrorist attacks in Turkey, the proposal said: “The huge danger ISIL poses has been neglected so far and no comprehensive plan to fight ISIL has been developed.”
Saying that measures against such terrorist threats are urgently needed, the proposal continued: “It is essential that a parliamentary investigation be launched in which all political parties are actively involved and that a jointly prepared comprehensive combat strategy be developed.”
http://www.todayszaman.com/national_ak-party-govt-under-fire-for-intelligence-failure-over-fatal-suruc-bombing_394213.html
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