The Geopolitics of Energy & Terrorism Part 7 by Iakovos Alhadeff - HTML preview

PLEASE NOTE: This is an HTML preview only and some elements such as links or page numbers may be incorrect.
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.

Turkey and ISIS

 

There is a blame game these days between Turkey on one hand, and Belgium and the Netherlands on the other, about Barkaoui, one of the Belgian terrorists who blew up the Brussels airport in March 2016. See Financial Times “Belgium admits mishandling Turkish terror warnings”, March 2016 http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/65c89c22-f1cb-11e5-aff5-19b4e253664a.html?ftcamp=crm/email//nbe/WorldNews/product#axzz448duMPHh

The Turks say they sent Barkaoui back to the Netherlands in July 2015, when they found out he was associated with radical Islamists in Turkey. The Belgians and the Dutch admit that the Turks sent Barkaoui back home, but they published the Turkish documents which accompanied Barkaoui, and it does not mention any connections to terrorism. The Turks say that this kind of information is normally given verbally and not written, and that it was provided by the Turkish authorities.

This blame game is more important than it seems, because the West accuses Turkey of supporting the radical Sunni Islamists of Syria and Iraq i.e. ISIS, both by buying its oil, and also by providing military and intelligence support. That does not mean that the West implies that it was Erdogan and Davutoglu who ordered the terrorist attacks in Europe. It is one thing to support ISIS against the Kurds and Assad in Syria, and another to order terrorist attacks in Brussels.

 

Picture 1 The Turkish Dictator Tayip Erdogan

img1.png

Turkey is a NATO country, and Erdogan could not possibly order terrorist attacks against the West. This was a practice of leaders who had officially declared war against the West, and they only did it for the period they were at war with the West, and not for the whole time of their ruling. Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Omar al Bashir in Sudan, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Iran until recently, were such cases. The Pakistani secret services are also carrying terrorist attacks against India. At least that’s what the Indians are saying.

Therefore even though it is possible for country leaders to order terrorist attacks, it is not possible for Turkey, which is a member of NATO. The secret services of the NATO countries would find out that the attacks were ordered by the Turkish government, and relations between the West and Turkey would have been frozen.

But as I said Turkey buys the oil of ISIS, and also provides ISIS with military and intelligence expertise, and therefore whenever ISIS decides to attack Europe it can do it a lot more efficiently. Actually Turkey is not the only Muslim country that supports ISIS, but Turkey is the greatest military power of the Muslim world and she is very interest about what is going on in Syria.

Anyway that’s the accusation against Turkey i.e. that her support to ISIS in Syria allows ISIS to attack Europe more efficiently, even if Turkey does not want these attacks. Turkey on the other hand says that that the West support the Kurds in Syria, and due to the cooperation between the Kurds of Syria and the Kurds of Turkey, the Western support ends up in the hands of the Kurds of Turkey (PKK), and therefore the West indirectly supports the attacks of the PKK in Turkey.

At the following map you can see with the red cycle the Western support to the Kurds of Syria, some of which ends up in the hands of the Kurds of Turkey (PKK), and it is used against Turkey. With the green cycle you can see the Turkish support to the Sunni radicals of Syria (ISIS), some of which ends up at the hands of radical Islamists in Europe.

 

Map 1

img2.png

Therefore even thought there is not a direct war between the West and Turkey over the issue of the PKK in Turkey and the Jihadist attacks in Europe, there is indeed an indirect war. As long as the Turks will be supporting ISIS in Syria, and as long as the West will be supporting the Kurds of Syria, there will be suspicions between the two parties, which at some point could escalate if an agreement is not reached between Turkey and the West about what will happen with the Kurds of Syria.

In the meantime Europe is flooded by pro-ISIS socialist propaganda, most of which is funded by the Arabs (Qatar, Saudi Arabia etc) and Turkey. You might be surprised to hear many journalists in the West accusing Europe and defending ISIS and Turkey. Look for example at the following picture.

 

Picture 2 Arab-Funded Socialist Propaganda

img3.png

The picture puts at the same basket the attacks in Turkey and the attacks in Europe, in order to say that we, the Europeans, make too much fuss about the attacks of ISIS in Europe, and we say that ISIS is supported by Turkey, but we don’t care about the attacks in Turkey by the PKK, which are indirectly supported by us, due to our support to the Kurds of Syria.

What the above picture does not say is that 2 of the attacks in Turkey were carried out by ISIS against tourists, and another one was an ISIS attack against the Kurds of Turkey. Only two of the attacks were Kurdish attacks against the Turks. The October 2015 attack was an ISIS attack against the Kurds of Turkey, the January 2016 attack was an ISIS attack against tourists, the February and the March 13 2016 attacks were Kurdish attacks against the Turks, and the March 19 2016 attack was an ISIS attack against tourists.

Therefore 3 out of 5 attacks in Turkey were ISIS attacks. What difference does it make if ISIS kills a European in Europe or Turkey? But do you hear European socialists discriminate between the attacks in Turkey? Most of the time the socialist propaganda in Europe, which is funded with Arab and Turkish money, does not discriminate between these attacks.

Both Turkey and the ISIS of Syria are infuriated with the Western support for the Kurds of Syria, and the socialist propaganda in Europe aims at reducing the European support for the Kurds.

I must also say that there are three sources of terrorism in Turkey. The first one is the ISIS attacks against the Kurds, and also against Western targets. The second is the Kurdish attacks against the Turks. The third one is the attacks of the Turkish communists against Turkish soldiers, policemen, businessmen etc.  These attacks are carried out by the Marxist terrorist organization  Marxist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), which is the equivalent of IRA, ETA etc. See Stratfor “Untangling the Threads of Terrorism in Turkey”, March 2016. https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/untangling-threads-terrorism-turkey?utm_source=paidlist-a&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=*|DATE:|*&utm_content=Daily+Intelligence+Brief%3A+March+22%2C+2016

Articles

(ISIS VS the Kurds)

“Turkey terror attack: mourning after scores killed in Ankara blasts”, October 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/10/turkey-suicide-bomb-killed-in-ankara\

(ISIS VS Tourists)

“Suicide bomber kills 10 people, mainly Germans, in Istanbul”, January 2016

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-blast-idUSKCN0UQ0UJ20160112

(The Kurds VS the Turks)

“February 2016 Ankara bombing”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_2016_Ankara_bombing

(Kurds VS Tourists)

“March 2016 Ankara bombing”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2016_Ankara_bombing

(ISIS VS Tourists)

“March 2016 Istanbul bombing”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2016_Istanbul_bombing