Turkey’s ISIS problem could get even worse if the government continues its non-war against radical ISIS terrorists at its doorstep, experts told Borderless News Online.
At a time when ISIS has carried out major attacks in four countries since December, Turkey’s government is getting hammered by critics who say it is doing nothing to stem the threat of radicals in its backyard. Critics also point out that some Turkish officials have in the past even expressed sympathy and admiration for ISIS, likening the killers to freedom fighters.
“Without a change in Turkish policy … the situation will only get worse,” Wayne White, former deputy director of the State Department’s Middle East Intelligence Office, told Borderless News Online.
While ISIS has overtaken vast swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, the radicals’ backs are against the wall amid coalition ground and air attacks, and ISIS is seeing its territory shrink. In an effort to show the world they are still a force to be reckoned with, the fundamentalist whackjobs are targeting civilians in Europe, the U.S. and Turkey.
Sevgi Akarçeşme, former editor in chief of Today’s Zaman, told Borderless that the country’s leaders are offering little hope to reduce people’s fears.
“There are clearly security breaches and grave intelligence failure. As always, the government will make statements of determination,” she said. “But with a weakened police force it is harder to fight terrorism.”
When asked what steps the government will take after this week’s horrific attack, she said: “I do not think much will change in terms of the precautions. It might be too late as well given the underestimation, to say the least, of the ISIS threat for years.”
Turkey has been fighting with terrorism on many fronts – such as against the PKK for decades – but there is not much done to sufficiently challenge the ISIS threat, she said.
“Initially, some high level Turkish officials underestimated and even expressed sympathy towards the radical group. Now, it is striking us back at home,” she said.
“Pro-government TV hosts people who praise ISIS attacks and no prosecutor takes action, while at the same time the government targets journalists,” she said.
Indeed, among Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rural base, there has been sympathy for the doomsday jihadists, and in the past Turkish media has reported that local officials in Turkey’s Sanliurfa province have expressed admiration for the terrorists, likening the killers to freedom fighters in a war of independence.
While borders have been secured, nobody knows how many ISIS sleeper cells exist within Turkey. Many ISIS sympathizers had been released while critics of the government are imprisoned on false terror charges. The ISIS threat is not even listed as the number one priority in the documents of the security forces, she said.
Akarçeşme, whose newspaper was seized by the government in March amid in a crackdown on press freedom in Turkey, said that due to severe pressure on free media, Turks do not have access to much information on ISIS capabilities outside of strongholds in Syria and Iraq.
“Unfortunately, there seems to be enough ISIS existence within Turkey to be alarmed, but no exact figures on the sleeper cells,” she said.
Since December, the extremists carried out strikes in Paris and Brussels that killed more than 100 civilians; played a role in the attack on a gay nightclub in the U.S. state of Florida; and now are likely behind a double suicide bombing at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport that so far has claimed more than 40 lives.
White said Turkey needs to crack down more thoroughly on Islamic militants inside Turkey; work harder to cut off ISIS completely from Turkey; and seek to return to some measure of peaceful engagement with the Kurds. If not, the problem could get even worse, he said.
Indeed, when Ankara effectively announced its intent to combat ISIS actively last year, most of Turkey’s military effort was instead aimed at the Kurdish PKK – an organization that has been in armed conflict with Turkey for years. The move ruptured what had seemed like a promising Turkish-Kurdish peace process, White said.
As a consequence, Erdogan created not one but two violent challenges: Both ISIS – largely left untouched by Turkey’s military and still with some residual border access – and the previously relatively quiescent Kurds, White said.
“In a way, Turkey has made itself an ideal ISIS target as a result of Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan’s flawed policies,” White said.
White said it is not surprising that ISIS radicals area now carrying out strikes against civilians as the group’s territory shrinks, contending that this is the only way the much-weakened ISIS can feed its propaganda machine, as well as lash out at countries it counts among its tormentors.
As ISIS holdings diminish, the organization can be expected to export as many zealots as possible to strike back in this manner, White said.
Furthermore, it is quite possible that ISIS could not resist punishing Turkey for its recent rapprochement with Israel and, in the past few days, its initiative to patch up seriously damaged relations with Russia, White said.
He added that some of ISIS’ terror attacks might not be grounded in entirely sensible strategic thinking.
“Some could represent little more than enraged, wild flailing much like that of a wounded beast. Others could be related to a belief—more often than not misplaced—that countries fighting against it will back off if confronted with terror,” he said.
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