Turkey teetering on the edge of terror

Since 2015, Turkey, a strategic Nato partner in the war against terror, and a key potential ally of the European Union (EU) in terms of intelligence sharing, has been teetering on the razor’s edge of uncertainty. It has fallen under the shroud of gruesome suicide bombings, some of which were blamed on the Islamic State (IS) while others were claimed by Kurdish terror outfits. Turkey, therefore, finds itself torn between the devil and the deep blue sea, fending and fighting off both Kurdish terrorists and the IS. After the terror attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, it is highly likely that Turkey will now strategically prioritise the IS security threat, giving it equal weight as Kurdish terrorism and the dangers posed by the neighbouring dictator, Bashar alAssad.

The tragic attack bears broader geo-strategic implications. As Europe undergoes seismic political shifts, witnessed most recently by Britain’s impending departure from the EU, the Istanbul attack may scupper Turkey’s bid for future accession to the European alliance. This was already undermined by Boris Johnson and the fear-mongering Brexit Leave campaigners. Nationalists throughout Europe will further feed the fear frenzy and use this tragic terror incident for political point-scoring to highlight Turkey’s EU entry as a carte blanche for terror spillover into mainland Europe.

Turkey is ill-fatedly infested with an IS network, active since May 2015. Logistically, militarily and operationally, IS cells in Turkey are not state-sponsored, but operate from informal underground networks, and are as well organised as those in Iraq and Syria. No one has as yet claimed responsibility for the airport attack, but like previous attacks in Suruc and Ankara, the style deployed, techniques used, and targets honed in on, show that it bears the stamp of IS characteristics in that the attackers struck simultaneously on multiple fronts, at high visibility landmarks, stretching emergency services to the limit. What distinguishes the IS from other terror groups within Turkey, such as the Kurdish PKK and the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks is that the latter strike more at ‘local’ targets, often using vehicle-based improvised explosive devices, where perpetrators tend to be females, as they are less likely to arouse suspicion. The IS, on the other hand, usually uses men, aim at international sites and transport hubs, as in Brussels, seeking to cause global shock and awe. Many ask why the IS would repeatedly target Turkey. Some believe that Ankara’s rapprochement with Tel Aviv, witnessed recently, irked the group into terror tactics. Another line of reasoning is that Turkey’s mounting operation against IS forces, especially in areas like Manbij where Kurdish forces are gaining territory and traction, compels the IS to reassert retaliation. As the IS loses the territorial war, it needs to keep winning the propaganda war.

The airport attack has already brought far-reaching foreign policy changes. President Putin has spoken to President Erdogan and agreed to normalise bilateral trade ties, ending the stalemate that had ensued following the shooting of a Russian jet fighter. As Russia and Turkey patch up, it is likely that the latter will rejoin coalition air strikes and that the US High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems regional deployment will speed up.

What motivates the IS to carry out such callous carnage in the holy month of Ramazan is that it marks the three-year anniversary of the terror group, alBaghdadi’s ‘faux caliphate’. Symbolism and sadistic grandeur are its hallmark, therefore the IS needed to mark its anniversary with blood-letting. The timing of the attack is strategically crucial. In a Ramazan message urging misguided ‘jihad’, Abu Mohammed alAdnani, the IS’s chief spokesman, instructed zealots “not to seek anyone’s permission”. This incites home-grown haters to execute deadly missions and circumvent chances of leaks or infiltration by intelligence services. The IS desperately thirsts for recognition and propaganda to keep fuelling its toxic global recruitment drive, both online and offline, as it faces unprecedented territorial losses in northern Euphrates, in cities like Fallujah, Qayyarah, Kirkuk, Tikrit, Mosul, as well as in northern Syria. Nobody wants to join ‘losers’ especially given the liberation of Hit, the meaningful traction achieved by Kurdish forces, and the intensified Western and Russian aerial campaigns.

So to preserve its recruitment and relevance, the IS has to deviate attention from such territorial setbacks by inflicting gruesome attacks abroad, especially on soft civilian targets such as the Ataturk airport, as this instantly gives the group sensationalist international publicity. Such atrocities keep it in the media spotlight, intensify its recruitment drive, propagate its divisive anti-West propaganda, and perpetuate its image of taking initiative, of causing shock, of reshaping the world — which is what it has done with alarming alacrity.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2016.

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