The Caliphate Next Door: Turkey Faces Up to its Islamic State Problem
By Katrin Elger, Hasnain Kazim, Christoph Reuter and Holger Stark DER
SPIEGEL September 29, 2014 – 06:11 PM
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-jihadist-activity-in-northern-syria-forces-turkey-hand-a-994392.html

For years, Ankara has been tolerating the rise of the extremist Islamic
State. But now that the jihadists are conquering regions just across the
border in northern Syria, concern is growing that Islamist terror could
threaten Turkey too.

Islim Ali is dragging a torn trash bag behind her, clothes spilling out of
the growing holes. Twenty-two years old and in her sixth month of pregnancy,
she heaves the sack into her arms and crosses the border, followed by her
husband, himself overloaded with possessions, and their two daughters, Esma,
6, and Rodin, 2. A Turkish disaster management agent notes down the Kurdish
family's personal details and they then sit down on the ground behind the
metal barricade. A gust of wind kicks up a cloud of dust, covering
everything with a fine layer. But the Alis don't seem to care. They are in
Turkey -- in safety.

The family had spent five days on the Syrian side of the border before
crossing into Turkey, having left their hometown of Kobani, called Ain
al-Arab in Arabic, once the Islamist fighters from Islamic State went on the
attack. The terrorists advanced closer and closer to the city and the Alis
could hear the shelling. They quickly packed clothing into sacks and left
behind their coffee shop, their apartment and their car -- they could only
cross the border on foot.

Islim Ali fans herself with a scrap of paper as her two-year-old, wearing
pink plastic sandals, leans up against her. The Alis don't know yet where
they will find shelter. Those who don't have family in Turkey are directed
by aid workers to the nearby refugee camp.

In normal times, Suruc is a town of 60,000 people, but nobody knows how many
are living there now. Refugee families have set up camp wherever they can
find a bit of space: in the park in front of the cultural center, hundreds
of people are sleeping on blankets. Most of the refugees want to return home
as quickly as they can, but it could be a while yet. Some 160,000 Syrians
have fled Islamic State fighters across the northern border in recent weeks,
with a total of 1.5 million refugees from the war already in Turkey.

The fight for Kobani represents a turning point for Turkey. Islamic State
fighters were just 300 meters from the border near Suruc last week. Should
the group successfully establish control over the region, the caliphate
could become Turkey's new neighbor. It is a horror scenario for Europe, but
most of all for Turkey -- and yet the general public there seems largely
unaware of it. Newspapers in the country are writing plenty about the
humanitarian catastrophe taking place on its southern border and about the
US air strikes against Islamic State, but the threat of a possible Islamist
attack on Turkey goes largely ignored.

A Key Role to Play

The country has been strangely reserved when it comes to dealing with the
Islamic State. It is the neighboring country that is perhaps most threatened
by the jihadist fighters, but it has refrained thus far from joining US
President Barack Obama's anti-terror coalition, even if Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan strongly hinted over the weekend that it might do so
soon. When it comes to combatting the Islamic State and putting an end to
the Syrian civil war, Turkey has a key role to play.

The government in Ankara had justified its hesitancy by pointing to the
dozens of Turkish diplomats taken hostage by the Islamic State in Mosul. Now
that they have been released, however, all eyes are on Turkey to see what
responsibilities it might take on. On the way back to Turkey from the United
Nations General Assembly in New York, Erdogan told reporters that his
country is now prepared to join the coalition. At the World Economic Forum
meeting in Istanbul on Sunday he added, in reference to the fight against
the Islamic State: "We cannot stay out of this."

From the US perspective, Turkey has often been a difficult partner. Still,
after the civil war in Syria began, the two countries expanded cooperation,
with American intelligence agencies operating centers in southern Turkey and
delivering information about intercepted extremist communications to their
Turkish counterparts in near real time.

When US Vice President Joe Biden met with Erdogan in New York last Thursday,
he greeted him warmly, saying "congratulations on the election, old friend."
The friendliness is carefully calibrated. The US badly needs NATO-member
Turkey in its anti-Islamic State coalition and has been doing all it can to
get Erdogan to join.

According to a White House press release, Biden and Erdogan spoke about "the
urgent need to build a broad-based coalition to defeat (Islamic State)
through a variety of means, including military actions, efforts to stop
financing (and) countering flows of foreign fighters into the region." The
use of the important NATO base in Incirlik in southern Turkey is also an
issue under discussion. The fighter jets stationed there have thus far not
been allowed to participate in the air strikes against Islamic State.

Single Greatest Threat

Erdogan's comments over the weekend make it look as though the campaign has
been successful. Even prior to his pledge to join the coalition soon, a
high-ranking diplomat said that discussions were ongoing and focused on
equipping and arming fighters to combat Islamic State extremists. Turkish
parliament is set to address the issue this week.

Erdogan's shift comes not a moment too soon; the extremists from across the
border have become the greatest single threat facing his country. And the
president himself is partly to blame. Early on, Ankara hoped it could take
advantage of the Islamist extremists, fighting as they were against Syrian
dictator Bashar Assad and the Kurdish PKK. But then, the Islamic State began
its brutal advances across Syria and Iraq.

The example of the Kurdish city of Kobani illustrates the parallel
strategies Turkey long pursued. The PYD, the Syrian counterpart to the
Kurdish independence group PKK operating in Turkey, took advantage of the
chaos in Syria to establish a tiny state there, calling it the Kobani
Canton. It had its own prime minister and foreign minister along with
ministers for health, defense, justice, women's issues and even for tourism.
"We shouldn't be swayed from establishing our own country," Foreign Minister
Ibrahim Kurdi told his fellow cabinet members in May. "The retreat of
Assad's troops has created a power vacuum. We need to close it before others
do."

But the Turks seemed uncomfortable with so much Kurdish independence. Even
as Islamic State fighters besieged the city for months, they could still
travel freely into Turkey and when the jihadists once again attacked Kobani
last week, Turkey was initially reluctant to open its borders to refugees.
Turkish Kurds who wanted to help those in Kobani were not allowed through
and were dispersed with water cannons.

"For Erdogan, this civil war is a possibility to keep us Kurds down," says
Halil Akbas, a local politician from the southern Turkish city of Sanliurfa
and a member of the Kurdish Democratic Regions Party, or BDP. "He won't let
the opportunity go unused," he says. "We know that he really wants to get
rid of us." Akbas helps refugees in Suruc find shelter and distributes
food -- fully 8,000 portions on a recent Thursday. He sits in a tea garden,
tears running down his face. "Excuse me," he says, wiping them away. "But
everything is so awful and our people are really suffering. So many children
no longer have a home."

Many Kurds share his belief that Erdogan has made a pact with the Islamic
State. "It should also be in Turkey's interest that we are defending the
border," says Kurdish journalist Esra Ciftci. She says that the Turkish
president is now acting as though he intends to fight against the terror
group. "But in reality, he is supporting them," she says. "None of us has
any doubt that Erdogan is playing a double game."

Nationalist Tones

After the Nusra Front and Free Syrian Army units attacked Syrian Kurds in
2012, corroborating witness statements said it took place at the behest of
Turkish security officials. Rebels, they say, were promised money and
weapons for the attack, though the assurances were allegedly given by the
Turkish military, which still sees the Kurds as enemies, rather than by the
government in Ankara.

Neither local politician Akbas nor journalist Ciftci believe in the peace
process any more, a sharp reversal from the hope Kurds had long harbored
with respect to Erdogan. For years now, his government has been negotiating
with the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan to find a solution to the
conflict, which has cost more than 30,000 lives since 1984. Erdogan even
initiated several laws legalizing the Kurdish language in exchange for a PKK
cease-fire. Many Kurds, however, have remained suspicious, a reflection of
the nationalist tones that Erdogan has repeatedly adopted.

Now, many feel their suspicions have been confirmed. "The thing with the
peace process was just show," says Ciftci. PKK leader Murat Karayilan
agrees, saying recently that "the peace process is over."

The trigger for Turkey's transformation into an ally of the radicals was the
insurgency against Assad in 2011. Then Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who
is now the country's prime minister, was one of many who believed at the
time that the Assad regime would quickly collapse, a conviction that led
Ankara to back the opposition.

"Our goal is the establishment of a Turkey-friendly government in Damascus
and an intensification of economic ties," says a parliamentarian from
Erdogan's AKP party who asked not to be named. "We made the decision to
position ourselves in opposition to Assad and can no longer abandon that
position without a loss of face. Doing so would be an admission that our
foreign policy has failed."

Assad's fall would immediately increase Turkey's influence as a regional
power, one possible explanation for why Ankara didn't look too closely at
who exactly it was supporting in Syria. Erdogan and Davutoglu, says Behlül
Ozkan from the Marmara University in Istanbul, "harbor pan-Islamic imperial
fantasies." But by the end of 2013, Turkey's laissez-faire approach had
become unviable. Thousands of jihadists from all over the world were flying
into Antakya and Gaziantep and crossing unhindered into Syria even as the
Syrian rebel groups that Ankara supported complained about the terror being
perpetrated by the Islamic State. Even the fact that the Islamic State this
year has served to support Assad by fighting other rebel groups has changed
nothing.

Rising Social Tensions

Worse yet, Turkey continued standing by as the Islamic State recruited
fighters in the country in addition to securing weapons, munitions and
supplies. Turkish hospitals along the border repeatedly treated wounded
jihadist fighters.

As recently as the beginning of this year, foreign jihadists were repeatedly
seen at the "humanitarian crossing" near Kilis -- waiting on the premises of
IHH, a Turkish aid organization with close ties to the government. Such
border crossings were established to reduce the amount of time it took
relief shipments to pass through customs. In June, Western aid workers also
spotted jihadists at the "humanitarian crossing" near the Syrian village of
Atma. Two Turkish Islamic State fighters even told a soldier that they had
just returned from the battle to conquer Mosul and were heading to Istanbul
for a bit of relaxation. The fact that they were carrying weapons was
apparently not an issue, despite the anomalous nature of their firearms: two
Glock pistols of the kind given to the Iraq police by the US, both modified
with mounted grenade launchers.

By then, the Turkish government should long since have recognized the true
nature of the Islamist group. It may already have been too late, however,
with foreign policy tactics beginning to become contaminated with
apprehension. Corruption, ineptitude and chaos within Turkey's security
apparatus no doubt also played a role, all of which made it more difficult
to control the border.

Now, Ankara is facing an extremely difficult situation. Providing care to
the masses of refugees costs billions of euros and weighs on the country's
already weak economy. Social tensions are on the rise with poor Turks in the
region envious of the relatively good care received by the refugees and
concerned about increased competition for jobs. Well-off Syrians have also
driven up rents in the cities.

The government's biggest fear, though, says political scientist Ozkan, is of
terror attacks. "Tourism is one of the most important economic sectors," he
says. "If a bomb goes off in a hotel and a couple of vacationers die, it's
over." The fear is certainly well-founded. Several hundred Islamic State
fighters come from Turkey and, in contrast to jihadists from elsewhere, they
can move about freely in their home country.

Like Ahmet, a 21-year-old from Istanbul who fights for the Islamic State.
"We are everywhere in Turkey, in Istanbul, in Ankara, in Gaziantep," he
says. It is impossible to confirm such claims, but Western intelligence
agents believe that the Islamic State actively tries to recruit young men in
Turkey. One intelligence agent who asked not to be identified says that
warnings have been delivered to Turkey for years. "But the government always
insists that it has the radicals under control."

Ahmet was recruited two years ago in Istanbul by a precursor group to the
Islamic State. Even then, he was full of admiration for the older boys at
the Koran school who spoke about their dreams of joining the jihad. He says
he has already been in Syria twice and is planning to return soon to fight
"to the end." His final battle, he says, is rapidly approaching.