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| Europe | ||
| Turkish Suicide Bombers the result of Turkey’s tactical alliance with Islamicists | ||
| 2003-11-24 | ||
| EFL The family of Gokhan Elaltuntas buried him in the dead of night, waiting until 2 a.m. Saturday to inter what bits remained of the soft-eyed young man after he detonated a truckload of fertilizer and petroleum outside an Istanbul synagogue seven days earlier. "We want to cleanse our surname, because we don’t want people to know us as terrorists," said his uncle, Rifat Elaltuntas....
I didn’t know that Turkey had used the Islamists against the Kurds. It hadn’t been reported in any newspapers, any magazines, etc. Perhaps the US govt. (under both Clinton and Bush) had been trying to keep it quiet as a favor to Turkey. Well... Damm!
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| Posted by:mhw |
| #9 Murat: Terrorists confessed that they were planning to attack public buildings and vehicles with fire bombs. Fire bombs = Molotov cocktails = light or no casualties = vandalism. Truck bombs = massive bombs = dozens of casualties = mass murder. That's the essential difference between PKK, its European terrorist brethren and al Qaeda. Turks tend not to want to see this difference. The PKK is no better or worse than the Black Panthers or the Symbionese Liberation Army. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-11-24 3:25:04 PM |
| #8 I heard on radio that a committee of the Turkish legislature is going to look into the extent to which the Turkish Hezbollah was coddled by the govt. (at least the extent of coddling before the Erdogan govt. took power). |
| Posted by: mhw 2003-11-24 12:59:21 PM |
| #7 From the Turkish press: VAN - Four PKK/KADEK terrorist organization members who were planning to attack public buildings with fire bombs were arrested in eastern Van province. Four terrorists who were captured by Security Directorate teams four days ago were arrested after their interrogation. Terrorists confessed that they were planning to attack public buildings and vehicles with fire bombs. |
| Posted by: Murat 2003-11-24 11:09:00 AM |
| #6 Take a look at opinionjournal today -- they have some Brit expat playing Murat's favorite tune and blaming the PKK. That the piece is loaded with bigotry against the Kurds should be ignored, of course. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-11-24 10:29:36 AM |
| #5 And..though I doubt myself here as I think Erdogan, like all leaders, is really just about maintaining his own power, I find myself asking the following question: In light of Erdogan's totally treacherous behavior re: the Northern front...and in light of the cooperation it would have taken to bomb the British Consulate and British HSBC bank.......where was Erdogan on the night of the bombings (so to speak)???? |
| Posted by: B 2003-11-24 10:27:53 AM |
| #4 This is BS. There are multiple links on rantburg showing that AQ has claimed joint responsibility of these attacks. The fact that three of the four Turkish suicide bombers involved in the attacks received training in Pakistan and Iran lends credence to that fact. Let's look at what really happened here. In a span of days, AQ and their subsidiaries bombed the British HSBC bank headquarters and a suicide car bomb attack targeted Jalal Talabani home in Northern Iraq. On the same day, State Minister Kursad Tuzmen received Talebani at the Foreign Trade Undersecretariat, in Ankra where the purpose of the meeting was to improve the relations in trade and politics between Turkey and Iraq. In response to criticism for killing Muslims, all the Islamonut mouthpieces start issuing declarations on why Turkey, as a secular governement, is a legitimate target. This is about AQ making a very clear statement of intimidation to Tayyip Erdogan, a man whose rise to power, was in part, based on his history of deep pro-Islamic ideology and once said, "One cannot be a secularist and a Muslim at the same time." But who has since attempted to recast his political persona, and create one of the most stable Turkish governments in recent years by strengthening the economy and maintaining a tenuous balance between secular detractors and more fundamentalist Islamic groups. It is clear to anyone who even remotely follows this, that economic cooperation between sucessful secular democracies of Turkey and Iraq would be frightening to Iran et al. The only question I have left is what role did the British Consulate have in promoting the ties between Talabani and Turkey? I just don't think AQ could have made the purpose of these attacks - to intimidate those wishing to promote Turkey/Iraq ties - any clearer. |
| Posted by: B 2003-11-24 10:19:41 AM |
| #3 Well people do know that 80% of all the Kurds sympathize the PKK either, with no proven involvement one cannot get arrested, the same goes for the Hezbollah sympathizers. Which courts in the west are arresting people on sympathies or on suspicions of belonging to an organization. In such case Israel has to arrest every Palestinian for suspected links to one of the terror groups there. The writer is suggesting too much without supplying any proof, local people said this and that. |
| Posted by: Murat 2003-11-24 9:54:56 AM |
| #2 The writer has valid reasons for the comments. here is another part of the article, -------------------------------------- People around here knew they were from the Hezbollah organization," said Yusuf Aydin, 65. "We are upset with the National Intelligence Organization for letting them travel abroad and do these things," he said, referring to Turkey's intelligence service. -------------------------------- If you report and analyze what local people tell you and print it, you are not liable - not in any court in the West. Can't sue the write |
| Posted by: mhw 2003-11-24 9:29:09 AM |
| #1 Alliance? Come on, though at peak times of the PKK the military did focus primarily on the PKK and the Hezbollah was regarded relatively small, it has always been high on the list. The writer of the article should be sued for telling lies about government arsenal and voicing the claims of the terrorist PKK. |
| Posted by: Murat 2003-11-24 9:11:23 AM |