Opinion: Erdogan has made up his mind at last

September 24, 2014 By administrator

Baha Güngör is head of DW’s Turkish service

Turkey’s head of state finally gave up his undecided course towards IS. Military action is Erdogan’s attempt to cut his losses, but it won’t help Turkey reclaim its role as a regional power, says DW’s Baha Güngör.

The Turkish government is not to be envied: On the one hand, a self-proclaimed religious group, which is in actual fact the most brutal group of the present time, has been terrorizing large areas in two neighboring states in close proximity to Turkey’s borders. Hundreds of thousands of people from both Iraq and Syria have seen no other option than to seek refuge in Turkey – to save their lives. At the same time, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has in the past not hesitated to use force against opponents at home, has been trying to treat the “Islamic State” (IS) with kid gloves, for fear of antagonizing them.

Forty-nine Turkish citizens who were taken hostage by the IS terrorist militia at Turkey’s consulate general in Mosul have been released. The price Turkey paid is yet unknown. It does seem odd that the jihadists would kill Western hostages in a horrifyingly brutal way on the one hand, while refraining from using violence against Turkish hostages on the other. Could it have been the reward for Turkey’s support – of an as yet unknown scale – of religiously fanatic parts of the Syrian opposition in the fight against the regime in Damascus?

The fact is that it’s now become much easier for Erdogan to publicly approve of the airstrikes by his Western allies under US leadership. In several interviews, he even promised logistics support – while refraining from promising direct involvement. Turkey is hesitant not least because it’s a member of NATO. The country’s general staff reacted instantly to media reports claiming that US planes about to attack IS strongholds were coming from Turkey. Army representatives said no armed US jets and no armed drones would receive permission to enter Turkish airspace, and that that was particularly true for the US military base of Incirlik on the Mediterranean Sea.

Erdogan has to show his true colors

But if Erdogan has indeed left his indecisive course, he now has to show his true colors and get ready for direct military support. The reason is simple: No other Western country is dealing with a graver refugee problem than Turkey. The number of refugees from Iraq and now from Syria is approaching 2 million. Turkish citizens have been intensifying protests against the refugee crisis. Changing the situation without using brute force against the “Islamic State” seems impossible.

Ankara’s misguided foreign policy is now taking its toll. During the revolutions in Arab countries, Turkey stood out with its disoriented policy. When civil war broke out in Syria, Erdogan quickly sided with the opponents of Bashar al-Assad, expecting the dictator’s imminent overthrow. Now Erdogan has to watch as the West openly considers involving Damascus and Baghdad in the fight against IS terrorists. In addition, Turkey also has to grudgingly accept the fact that the West is delivering weapons to Kurds in neighboring states so they can protect themselves against IS militia.

No, the Turkish government is not to be envied at all. It has maneuvered itself into a maze with mistakes made in the foreign policy realm. It needs its Western allies to find the way out, and it has to accept their decisions.

More indecisiveness in dealing with neighbors as well as with terrorists could see Turkey end up facing a bill it would never be able to pay. The country has long lost its role as a regional power in the Middle East – and will not get it back anytime soon.

ISIL militants moving freely in Istanbul

September 23, 2014 By administrator

A newly-released online video shows people in ISIL clothes with the group’s flag travelling freely in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

The video filmed on the Istanbul subway shows two young men wearing ISIL T-shirts freely heading for their destination. report presstv.com

This comes as shops in several countries have been promoting ISIL clothes, toy equipment and gifts.

The footage has raised major concerns that those purchasing such clothes are somehow showing loyalty to the terrorist group.

Experts say the footage circulating online appears genuine and has been corroborated by other reports.

Quoting Turkish government officials and media reports, The New York Times reported on Monday that Turkey is one of the biggest sources of foreign fighters for the Takfiri group, which has captured large swathes of land in Iraq and Syria.

The newspaper cited the example of one former fighter who had been taken to Syria along with 10 of his friends and joined the ISIL after 15 days of training in the city of Raqqa.

This is not the first time that media expose links between the Turkish government and Takfiri militants.

German television station ARD has recently revealed that an office, run by ISIL-affiliated Turks, helps foreign militants cross the Turkish border to join the terrorist group’s militants in Iraq and Syria. The report said militants have been paid up to 400 euros to join the battles.

The German state TV station added that there are more than 2,000 militants joining ISIL who come from Europe, adding that they enter Istanbul as a tourist and then cross borders into Iraq and Syria.

The West and its regional allies, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, are reportedly giving financial and military support to the militants.

Why did ISIL agree to give up the Turkish hostages?

September 22, 2014 By administrator

EMRE USLU
e.uslu@todayszaman.com

The “hostage crisis” between Turkey and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is one of the most mysterious and bizarre “crises” that any nation could face. When the Turkish Consulate General in Mosul was seized and 49 people — including Turkish diplomats and security personal — were taken by ISIL, many people asked why the consulate hadn’t been evacuated.

Conflicting statements were released; after that, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan confidently stated that Turkey would take the hostages with ease, as if they were not in the hand of the most brutal terrorists. Many people believed that it was a political saga that both the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and ISIL had agreed upon rather than a real hostage-taking.

Although ISIL had the Turkish diplomats in its hands, they were treated as if they were not hostages. For instance, the Turkish consul was allowed to use his cellphone during his captivity of more than 100 days. ISIL is not a stupid organization which does not know that an electronic signal could be used as intelligence to reveal where the hostages are. In order for ISIL to allow the Turkish diplomat to use his cellphone, it must have had a guarantee that Turkey would not conduct an operation to rescue the hostages.

Like its beginning, the hostage-taking saga ended in a bizarre way. ISIL released the Turkish hostages, but left many unanswered questions behind it.

A retired American diplomat friend of mine raised the following questions:

“It was good news indeed that the Turkish hostages were released, but the circumstances, as reported in the Turkish press, do not ring true. No shots were fired, no military pressure was applied, and no ransom paid. Why, then, did ISIL agree to give up the hostages? There must have been a quid pro quo. The assumption among some of the bloggers here is that Turkey agreed to something that ISIL wanted, like a guarantee not to engage in offensive operations against the ‘Islamic State’.”

These are some of the questions that remain unanswered. At this stage no one, except a few people who negotiated with ISIL, can answer these questions.

More importantly, I don’t think the Turkish press — and especially the pro-government media outlets — will give us accurate background information about the negotiation process.

It is a typical tendency of Turkish media outlets that under such circumstances, they run heroic stories, most of them fabricated with barely any truth in them. Thus, I tend to read the Turkish press with caution these days. It would take years for the Turkish press to write true stories about events like this.

It is not a new phenomenon to the Turkish media. We know it from the Abdullah Öcalan case. When Öcalan was brought to Turkey, we read many heroic stories about how he had been captured. Similarly, we read stories how other Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants such as Şemdin Sakık were brought to Turkey.

In order to understand what has really happened between Turkey and ISIL, the pro-government Turkish media is the least reliable source of information. I prefer to follow the news from opposition media outlets and pro-ISIL Internet sites.

Tevhidhaber.net, a pro-ISIL website that openly and freely publicizes in Turkey — which is another bizarre fact, that the Turkish authorities are shutting down Twitter and YouTube and closing Twitter accounts which criticize the government but allow ISIL to freely propagate in and recruit from Turkey — stated that Turkey had guaranteed not to join the international coalition against ISIL.

As a security expert, I will make some guesses about the possibilities of what Turkey might have promised to ISIL to get the hostages back.

First, as the ISIL website claimed, some form of guarantee to not join the coalition against ISIL. Another possibility is to give ISIL a promise to delay possible international operations inside Syria to allow it to gain some time and more territory. If these are not possible, Turkey may even offer to play an intermediary role between the West and ISIL to end the violence.

Second, Turkey may provide strategic information to ISIL to defeat its enemies in Syria and Iraq. In fact, when ISIL was pushed back in Iraq, it launched offensives against the PKK/Democratic Union Party (PYD) stronghold Kobane and seized some strategic locations. Without information such as strategic intelligence about the locations of PYD units and powerful weaponry, it would have been difficult for ISIL to win against the trained PKK militants.

Third, instead of giving direct aid to ISIL, Turkey might have given aid in the form of economic, armament or intelligence help to the pro-ISIL tribal leaders who facilitated the negotiations.

Alleged ISIL member treated at Turkish hospital

September 22, 2014 By administrator

By FEHMİ ALTUN / ŞANLIURFA

Todayzaman reported

A man who is suspected of being a member of the terrorist organization the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which calls itself the Islamic State, was allegedly admitted to the intensive care unit of Mehmet Akif İnan State Hospital in southeastern Şanlıurfa province.

Ammar Alo was reportedly first taken to a private hospital for initial medical treatment and then moved to Mehmet Akif İnan State Hospital at 9:10 a.m. on Monday. He was said to be in critical condition. Doctors there also said that a number of lab tests were run for the patient.

Clashes have been underway between ISIL and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), an offshoot of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Syria, over the past few days. There have been claims that militants from both sides are being treated in Turkey. According to sources here, PYD members are being treated at Suruç State Hospital and ISIL militants are being treated at Akçakale State Hospital. Militants in critical condition from both sides are often reportedly taken to the Mehmet Akif İnan State Hospital, all of which are in Şanlıurfa.

Photographs of Alo in a hospital were shared on Twitter by many users who expressed anger at the allegations that he is being treated at a Turkish hospital.

The Turkish government’s stance towards ISIL has so far been ambiguous. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government has been accused of supporting the terrorist organization by turning a blind eye to its militants crossing the border and even of buying its oil. There have also been claims that Turkey has sent weapons to opposition groups fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The government has denied supporting ISIL, which recently released 49 Turkish hostages it had been holding for three months.

In a challenge to the government’s stance, Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman and party spokesperson Haluk Koç on Monday called on the AK Party government to publicly announce that it defines ISIL as a terrorist organization.

Turkish hostages freed, but questions linger

September 20, 2014 By administrator

By SUZAN FRASER and RAPHAEL SATTER, Associated Press

Updated 8:54 am, Saturday, September 20, 2014

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish authorities say they have freed 49 hostages from one of the world’s most ruthless militant groups without firing a shot, paying a ransom or offering a quid pro quo.

But as the well-dressed men and women captured by the Islamic State group more than three months ago clasped their families Saturday on the tarmac of the Turkish capital’s airport, experts had serious doubts about the government’s story.

The official explanation “sounds a bit too good to be true,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat who chairs the Istanbul-based Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies. “There are some very legitimate and unanswered questions about how this happened.”

The hostages — whose number included two small children — were seized from the Turkish Consulate in Mosul after the Islamic State group overran the Iraqi city on June 11. Turkish leaders gave only the broadest outlines of their rescue Saturday.

NY Times urges Turkish authorities to ensure safety of its reporter

September 19, 2014 By administrator

The New York Times responded to attacks on its Turkey reporter after it published a report focusing on the alleged recruitment of Turks by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in an Ankara neighborhood, calling on Turkish authorities to ensure her safety. report TodayZAMAN

Ceylan Yeğinsu came under attack by the pro-government media and on social media platforms after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lashed out at a report she wrote for The New York Times that was published on Sept. 15. Erdoğan particularly was angered by the photo that was published along with the story, picturing him and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu leaving a mosque in the same Ankara neighborhood, Hacı Bayram. “This is shameless, ignoble and base,” Erdoğan said in a speech on Wednesday.

Later that same day, The New York Times removed the photo and issued a correction, saying the photo was published in error and clarifying that neither the mosque in the photo nor the president’s visit were related to the recruiting of ISIL fighters described in the article.

The New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet said that even though the correction had been issued, the reporter came under an “unacceptable” attack.

“Despite this published correction, some Turkish authorities and media outlets have mounted a coordinated campaign to intimidate and to impugn the motives of the reporter who wrote the story,” Baquet said in the statement released late on Thursday. “She has been sent thousands of messages that threaten her safety. It is unacceptable for one of our journalists to be targeted in this way.”

“We expect the Turkish authorities to work to ensure the safety of our journalists working legally in the country and we would ask these authorities to use well-established procedures for reaching either myself or other top editors of The New York Times should further communication regarding this matter be necessary,” he also said.

Yeğinsu has been targeted in pro-government newspapers and websites, which have published defamatory articles that feature her photo.

“Ceylan wrote that story,” read a front-page story in the Takvim daily on Thursday. Two other pro-government media outlets, Star newspaper and A Haber television, also ran stories on their websites “exposing” The New York Times reporter as a Turk. “A Turk turned out to be behind the New York Times’ perception operation,” read the headline of a story on the website of Star newspaper, again with a photo of Yeğinsu.

Takvim continued to target Yeğinsu on Friday, running another front-page story featuring her photo and titled: “Hear this, Ceylan.” The story offered a compilation of accounts from people it said were residents of Hacı Bayram, criticizing Yeğinsu for her report and dismissing the ISIL recruitment operation described in it.

Australia police raids foil ‘beheading plot’

September 18, 2014 By administrator

Counter-terrorism operation to stop “demonstration killings” in public by ISIL supporters ends in 15 detentions.

Thursday’s raids came a week after Australia boosted its terror-threat level to ‘high’ [Reuters]

Australian authorities have carried out their largest “counter-terrorism” raids so far, detaining 15 people to stop an alleged plot by supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to carry out “demonstration killings” in public.

A pre-dawn operation was carried out on Thursday across Sydney and Brisbane by more than 800 officers acting on about 25 search warrants.

The raids came in response to intelligence that an ISIL leader in the Middle East was calling on Australian supporters to kill, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said.

Abbott was asked about reports that the detainees were planning to behead a random person in Sydney.

“That’s the intelligence we received,” he told reporters. “The exhortations – quite direct exhortations – were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country.”

Police were holding six people and have identified the suspected ringleader, officials said. Nine other people were detained but were freed before the day was over.

Terror alert

The raids came barely a week after Australia boosted the terror threat level to “high” for the first time in a decade, on growing concern about armed members of ISIL returning from fighting in Iraq and Syria.

Attorney General George Brandis confirmed that a person born in Afghanistan who had spent time in Australia and is now working with ISIL in the Middle East ordered supporters in Australia to behead people and videotape the killings.

“If the … police had not acted today, there is a likelihood that this would have happened,” Brandis told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The Australian government believes up to 60 Australians are fighting alongside ISIL, while another 100 were actively working to support the movement at home.

Mohammad Ali Baryalei, who is believed to be Australia’s most senior member of ISIL, was named as a co-conspirator in court documents filed on Thursday.

Police have issued an arrest warrant for Baryalei, a 33-year-old former Sydney nightclub bouncer.

One of those detained, 22-year-old Omarjan Azari of Sydney, appeared briefly in a Sydney court on Thursday.

Prosecutor Michael Allnutt said Azari was involved in a plan to “gruesomely” kill a randomly selected person – something that was “clearly designed to shock and horrify” the public. That plan involved an “unusual level of fanaticism,” he said.

Azari is charged with conspiracy to prepare for a terrorist attack.

In court documents, Azari is accused of conspiring with Baryalei and others between May and September to prepare for a terrorist attack. Allnutt said the charge stemmed from the interception of a phone call a couple of days ago.

The latest raids followed the arrests of two people last week in Brisbane who were charged with allegedly recruiting, funding and sending self-declared jihadist fighters to Syria.

And, on Wednesday, a Sydney-based money transfer business was shut down amid concerns it was being used to funnel funds to the Middle East to finance “terrorism.”

ISIL drawing a steady stream of recruits from Turkey: Report

September 17, 2014 By administrator

NEW YORK

AP Photo

Turkey is one of the biggest sources of recruits for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, the New York Times reported Sept. 16.

Having spent most of his youth as a drug addict in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Turkey’s capital, Ankara, Can did not think he had much to lose when he was smuggled into Syria with 10 of his childhood friends to join the world’s most extreme jihadist group.

After 15 days at a training camp in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto headquarters of ISIL, 27-year-old Can was assigned to a fighting unit. He said he shot two men and participated in a public execution. It was only after he buried a man alive that he was told he had become a full ISIL fighter.

“When you fight over there, it’s like being in a trance,” said Can, who asked to be referred to only by his middle name for fear of reprisal. “Everyone shouts, ‘God is great,’ which gives you divine strength to kill the enemy without being fazed by blood or splattered guts,” he said.

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Alleged ISIL supporters open TV station in Turkey

September 17, 2014 By administrator

A broadcasting company with links to the Al-Rafidain TV network, which has been blocked in Egypt over ambiguity concerning its stance on the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has opened in Turkey, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Turkey.

WSJ Turkey on Wednesday reported that the Turkey-based company, which launched with TL 200,000 in capital, appears to be registered in İstanbul Chamber of Commerce (İTO) records; its sphere of activities is listed as TV programming and broadcasting.

The company was founded on Tuesday, the WSJ said, noting that the phone number provided by the company is the same as the phone number of the company that does the accounting work of Al-Rafidain.
Al-Rafidain is best known for its administration’s stance against former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and for its pro-Sunni broadcasts.

On June 24, Reuters reported that Egypt barred three private Iraqi TV stations from its main satellite system in response to complaints from Iraq that their coverage was provoking sectarian tensions.

Reuters said: “Al-Baghdadia, Al-Rafidain and Al-Hadath TV stations were all barred from the state-owned Nilesat, which broadcasts across the Middle East and North Africa. … The channels have covered the onslaught by Sunni insurgent group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant extensively and carried statements from the al-Qaeda offshoot.”

However, statements made at the time by Egyptian officials did not directly link the decision to block the three stations to complaints from Baghdad.

WSJ Turkey said its attempts to reach the new TV station’s management have failed. The accounting company that works with Al-Rafidain told the newspaper, “We have been told that there will be broadcasts here. They are in the phase of being set up right now.” The daily also reported that the station so far hasn’t applied to Turkey’s media-watchdog, the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTÜK).

Turkey refrains from supporting campaign against ISIL at Paris meeting

September 15, 2014 By administrator

Turkey refrained from becoming part of a group of countries and international organizations that pledged support to the central government in Baghdad in its fight against the threat of the radical Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) during an international conference on Iraq’s peace and security conference in Paris, the private Cihan news agency reported.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu attended the international counter-terrorism conference along with the five UN Security Council (UNSC) permanent members, a number of European and Arab countries and representatives from the European Union, Arab League and United Nations hosted in Paris on Monday.

All the attendants except Turkey pledged to help the Baghdad government in its fight against ISIL. The main agenda of the meeting was about providing military support to the government of Baghdad against ISIL. But Çavuşoğlu did not offer any kind of support to Baghdad during the conference, according to Cihan.

During the meetings, the Turkish delegation in Paris reportedly emphasized that the fight against ISIL is not only in Iraq — it is also a threat in Syria — and pointed out that as long as President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria is in power, the threat of ISIL will continue.

Turkish diplomats informed their counterparts in the meeting about a “no-entry” list that consists of 6,000 individuals from Europe and elsewhere who are linked to radical groups. So far, the Turkish diplomats said, 1,000 of them have been extradited.

Turkey also recently refused to sign a communiqué that supports an international campaign against ISIL in Jeddah. At the counter-terrorism meeting, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon agreed to cooperate against ISIL, take steps to stop foreign fighters going to Iraq and Syria and funds going to ISIL, provide humanitarian aid and contribute to different aspects of the military campaign.

While the Arab allies signed the final communiqué, NATO ally Turkey did not.

Turkey was reportedly asked during these meetings to seal its borders to prevent foreign fighters from coming and going into Syria through its territory and to take measures to prevent oil smuggling.

Source: Zaman.com