| Islamic militants arrested in Turkey |
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| World Affairs Talk | |
| Tuesday, 08 May 2007 | |
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The Republic of Turkey, with a population of 67 million, sits at the cross roads between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923, modern Turkey is a republican parliamentary democracy based on secular institutions. Civil war in Iraq is likely aggravating political and social instability in Turkey. Over the past two decades, terrorism has exacted an enormous toll in Turkey, a secular democracy with a 99.8% Muslim population. From 1984 to 2000, an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 Turkish citizens were killed by a nearly continuous stream of terrorism-related events. During this period, the Partiya Karekeren Kurdistan (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group (re-named KADEK in 2002), was responsible for the vast majority of terrorism-related events (and casualties), which disproportionately affected the eastern and southeastern regions of Turkey, in which the PKK has focused its activities. Terrorism in modern Turkey has its roots in the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, two decades marked by tremendous political and social upheaval in Turkey. Several factors fueled the instability of this period: (1) rapid urbanization as the population migrated from rural Turkey to its cities; (2) economic hardships as employment failed to keep up with an exploding urban population; (3) growing unrest in the southeastern Kurdish provinces; and (4) nascent radical Islamic and leftist student movements. Also exacerbating this upheaval was the Constitution of 1961, which guaranteed Turkish citizens the right to political protest, and a succession of civilian governments that failed to control these worsening problems. By the late 1970s, both left-wing and right-wing political extremes had given rise to numerous domestic terrorist organizations. As a result, terrorist bombings, shootings, and threats were commonplace. Between 1978 and 1982, the Turkish National Security Council recorded an estimated 43,000 terrorist incidents in Turkey, with an average of 28 deaths per day due to terrorist attacks. On 12 September 1980, with the government unable to stem the rising tide of political violence, the Turkish military supervened with a coup. In 1983, with a new Constitution in place and order seemingly restored, the Turkish government, once again, reverted to civilian rule. However, by the mid-1980s, terrorist attacks resurfaced, as old terrorist organizations regrouped and as new groups emerged. The 1990s brought little change in the pattern of terrorism in Turkey. The vast majority of terrorist attacks still were carried out by an assortment of domestic groups. Furthermore, three main ideologies — Kurdish separatism, radical Islamism, and Marxism — continued to dominate the Turkish domestic terrorist agenda. Exceptions to this trend were periodic assassinations of Iranian dissidents by Iranian state agents in the early 1990s and three major events by Chechen militants (i.e., Trabzon ferry hijacking in 1996; Istanbul hotel hostage-taking in 2001; and Istanbul to Moscow aircraft hijacking in 2001). A group of Turkish religious extremists with close links to al-Qaeda were behind a series of four suicide bomb attacks in Istanbul in Nov 2003, which left more than 60 people dead. The suicide bombers drove small trucks laden with explosives into two synagogues on Nov 15, 2003, and five days later attacked the British consulate in Istanbul and the Istanbul headquarters of the London-based HSBC bank. More than 70 Turks are now on trial for their alleged roles in those attacks, though police say some suspected ringleaders have fled the country and others have died fighting the U.S. forces in Iraq. Many of those arrested in connection with the 2003 attacks acknowledge attending militant Islamist training camps in Chechnya and Afghanistan, but deny direct ties to the al-Qaida network. The last major publicized crackdown on Islamic militants in Turkey, a 99 percent Muslim country, was in November 2006, when police said they detained 10 militants with bomb-making materials during the visit of Pope Benedict XVI in the country. In December 11, 2006 the Turkish police detained a lawyer who admitted he was the leader of al Qaeda in Turkey. Nine other suspects were also held. Police seized bomb-making material and a compact disc set to explode when inserted into a computer. Despite the historic burden of terrorism on Turkey, the risk of terrorism today probably is lower than it has been in recent years, owing to several factors. First, with the recent arrests or deaths of their leaders, most major terrorist groups have been weakened, if not decapitated. Accordingly, the magnitude of terrorist attacks has lessened during last three years. Second, some of the impetus for radical Islamism in Turkey may be defused by the pluralism of the Turkish political system and the full integration of the Refah Partisi (Islamic Fundamentalist Welfare Party) into this system. Third, with the Cold War over, communism is unlikely to attract the zealous support that it did during previous decades. Finally, as a state party to all 12 international conventions and protocols against terrorism, Turkey continues to be a proactive partner in the international war against terrorism. Nevertheless, a substantial risk of terrorism in Turkey persists. One factor likely to fuel future domestic terrorism in Turkey is the economic under-development that continues to exist in its southeastern region, rendering the Kurdish population more susceptible to the agendas of Kurdish separatist and radical Islamic terrorist groups. Share & Bookmark             |
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