DEBKA: Al Qaeda’s Turkish Knife Hangs Over Europe

When informed of the Istanbul synagogue bombings last Saturday, November 15, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an off-the-cuff reaction, hit the nail on the head. They are trying to destabilize Turkey, he said, there and then cutting short his trip to Cyprus. Within hours he had reached the scenes of destruction in Istanbul and called an emergency cabinet session in Ankara.

The Jewish and British sites devastated in two rounds of coordinate attacks this week, in which at least 55 people lost their lives and 750 were maimed, are standard targets for al Qaeda, which has declared war on the West and the Jews. However, what the Turkish prime minister was quick to grasp was that Osama bin Laden’s network had joined with at least one Turkish partner-in-terror — The Islamic Greater Easter Raiders Front (IBDA-C) and possibly others — for bigger goals and is not yet done. Turkey has been selected as the favored target of the Islamic international terror network for three main reasons:

1. Erdogan’s year-old government heads a pro-Western secular democratic Muslim society, a quadruple crime in al Qaeda’s radical fundamentalist book. Turkey is therefore living proof that a secular Muslim democracy is possible, vindicating the US president George W. Bush’s ideology and a model for emulation. In al Qaeda’s eyes, therefore, Turkey is guilty on even more counts than Saudi Arabia’s ruling house and has been placed accordingly at the center of Bin Laden’s destabilization agenda.

2. Available to al Qaeda for joint suicide operations is one or more Turkish extremist group which has no compunctions about murdering fellow Turkish Muslims. Local Istanbul Muslims indeed accounted for by far the largest number of victims in both series of suicide car bombings — at the two Istanbul synagogues last Saturday and at the British consulate and London-based bank on Thursday.

3. While rejected as a member of the European Union, Turkey is a major gateway to Europe — where the Islamist suicide bombers may be heading next.

One Turkish paper Hurriyet dismisses the condemnations of terror and condolences coming from the UK and US as crocodile tears and serving their leaders’ political agendas. Tony Blair is described by Millyet as trying to use the attacks in Istanbul for his own benefit, while stuck in a corner over Iraq. Turks across the country are holding silent processions Saturday, November 22, to express their outrage and grief over the carnage in their country. They reject the arguments of such fringe groups as the IBDA-C, which claimed the attacks, that the Republic of Turkey is illegal and must be replaced with an Islamic state.

I read the papers every day and will tell you that the "Crocodile tears" remark is aimed at the EU governments, who to this day have not recognized IBDA/C, as well as others, as terrorist organizations.

But it is ironic to all Turks that the US, seemingly devout in her war on terror, will let the PKK terrorist organization, 5000 strong and responsible for over 30,000 dead citizens of Turkey and countless thousands of acres of burned forests, hiding in the mountains of northern Iraq survive.

Want solidarity? Don't oppose and hamper our war on terror..

2 posted on 11/22/2003 2:40:58 PM PST by a_Turk (Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light....)

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