Author: Emil Lazarian

Washington Examiner
By Michael Rubin
Last April, the Biden administration formally recognized the Armenian
genocide, more than a century after it began.
In the final years of the Ottoman Empire, Turks engaged in the
slaughter of upwards of 1 million Armenians and the displacement of
even more. Evidence of government direction belies the fog of war
explanation dominant in Turkey and among its scholars, as does the
fact Ottoman Turkish authorities evacuated communities in towns and
cities beyond the time and place of most World War I-era fighting.
As a result of the genocide, Turkey today possesses much of the land
President Woodrow Wilson proposed assigning to independent Armenia
after World War I. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s birthplace Rize is
well within this traditionally Armenian region.
Perhaps it was Ottoman Turks’ success at ethnic cleansing that have
led successive Turkish governments, both secular and religious, to
keep such tactics among their policy quiver. While Erdoğan seeks
international praise for hosting millions of Syrian refugees, his
actions are not altruistic. Not only does he weaponize the threat of
refugees to extract concessions from European states, but he also
selectively settles and bestows citizenship upon Sunni Arab refugees
to dilute Turkey’s Kurdish and Alevi populations. Sectarian Sunni
Islamists such as Erdoğan despise Alevism, a sect similar to Shi'ism
that is dominant in portions of eastern and central Turkey.
However, the victims of the genocide are Yezidi. Historically, the
United States has ignored the Yezidis, adherents to a pre-Islamic
religion whose population traditionally spans the area where Turkey,
Syria, and Iraq meet. Consciousness of the Yezidi rocketed to the
headlines in 2014 when the Islamic State overran traditional Yezidi
areas, slaughtering Yezidi men and raping and enslaving Yezidi women
and children. Celebrities, politicians, and diplomats rallied to the
cause of the Yezidis and celebrated when Iraqi forces, Shi’ite
militias, and Kurdish Peshmerga backed by U.S. airpower unraveled the
would-be caliphate. Politicians worldwide posed proudly with Nadia
Murad, a former Islamic State captive who received the 2018 Nobel
Peace Prize for her activism on behalf of her fellow Yezidis and
victims of sexual violence.
Still, many Yezidis remain in captivity. Visiting Sinuni, just miles
from the Syrian border, I met Yezidis who showed me proof-of-life
videos of relatives who remained in captivity in Turkey and Syria
regions controlled by Turkish proxy groups. However, U.S. diplomats in
Erbil dismissed the notion that any Yezidis remained in captivity as
"wishful thinking" on the part of the community — they refused to
interview Yezidis or view such videos.
The cost of such apathy goes beyond condemning Yezidi girls to suffer
years more rape. In recent years, Turkey has waged a relentless
bombing campaign against Yezidi villagers and farmers in the Sinjar
region of northwestern Iraq. While Turkish diplomats say their bombing
is rooted in a counterterrorism campaign, the reality is that the
targets are more often farmers and families. Turkish bombing, often
using U.S. warplanes or drones with American components, appears
motivated less by counterterrorism and more in the desire to prevent
any meaningful Yezidi return.
When I visited Sinjar in December 2019 as a guest of a United Nations
agency, security officials warned our group our convoy could be a
victim of Turkish bombardment if we remained in the area after dusk.
They explained the Turks did not differentiate in practice between
civilians, international organization workers, and terrorists. While
the bombing represents a near-daily violation of Iraqi sovereignty,
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s acquiescence to it remains a moral
stain on his record.
Turkish bombardment of Yezidi communities has increased as the Ukraine
crisis and the fight against the Islamic State distracts the world. On
Feb. 1 and 2, for example, 60 aircraft took off from air bases across
Turkey. Accompanied by drones, these aircraft hit almost two dozen
locations across Sinjar, killing numerous civilians across the region.
Too often, journalists accept Turkish claims such bombardment targeted
terrorists and was accurate.
Local officials are probably correct when they say the Turkish purpose
is more to terrorize the local population and prevent return of Yezidi
Kurds to a region where Turkish nationalists increasingly seek to
annex.
The weak response by Washington and the international community simply
encourages Turkey to increase its attacks. Biden may talk a good game
on human rights, but Erdogan assesses White House rhetoric as empty
and believes genocide works. For Turkey, the Yezidis are quickly
becoming this century’s Armenians.
*
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway
Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute.
 

The National Interest
By Sam Mullins and Cüneyt Gürer
Feb. 11, 2022
[Given the extent of the Islamic State’s presence in Turkey, along
with the multitude of problems facing the country, it is remarkable
that Turkish authorities have kept the lid on things until now. The
question is how much longer it can last.]
It has been more than five years since an Islamic State gunman opened
fire at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, killing thirty-nine revelers
from more than a dozen countries as they celebrated the New Year. The
group has not conducted a significant attack in Turkey since, and
international attention has been drawn elsewhere, captivated by the
latest blood and gore. But while the West has been fixated on emerging
and reemerging threats in far-off places, from sub-Saharan Africa to
Afghanistan, a much more sophisticated and immediate danger has been
simmering away in Turkey. Given the extent of the Islamic State’s
presence in Turkey, along with the multitude of problems facing the
country, it is remarkable that Turkish authorities have kept the lid
on things until now. The question is how much longer it can last.
From the outset, Turkey has been of critical importance to the Islamic
State. At the height of the caliphate-building project, foreign
fighters were flocking to Syria and Iraq in droves. Most of them
arrived by way of Turkey, where they were met by facilitators who
vetted them and sometimes gave them training before smuggling them
across what was then a poorly guarded border. But Turkey was always
far more than just a transit point and staging ground for new arrivals
from outside the region. More than 6,500 Turkish citizens (including
family members) reportedly joined the Islamic State, making it an
important area for recruitment and one of the largest producers of
foreign fighters in the world. Furthermore, the country swiftly
emerged as a critical financial and logistical hub for the
organization, allowing the Islamic State to acquire and move vast
amounts of money, weapons components, precursor explosive materials,
and a variety of other services and supplies. It is hardly a surprise
then, as the caliphate began to crumble in Syria, that the fallback
position for many—including a number of high-ranking leaders—was in
Turkey.
At the time of the Reina nightclub attack, Ahmet Yayla, a former
Turkish counterterrorism officer, estimated that there were around
2,000 “hardcore” Islamic State operatives in Turkey (about the same
number that the United Nations recently posited are in Afghanistan).
Since then, that number appears to have grown substantially. As the
fall of Raqqa was looming in the summer of 2017, Islamic State
commanders instructed their followers to seek refuge and await orders
across the Turkish border. “Many hundreds” of Islamic State fighters
and their family members were reportedly allowed to leave Raqqa under
the terms of a deal struck with the Kurds, and thousands more would
flee Syria in the months that followed. Though it was not the only
destination they could go to, it was perhaps the most attractive, and
it is almost certain that many of these individuals went into hiding
in Turkey. Add to this the “thousands” of Turkish foreign fighters who
returned home—few of whom have been prosecuted—and it is clear that
Turkey has a serious problem.
As the threat has metastasized, the number of counterterrorism
operations has soared, supposedly approaching around 1,000 per year,
with dozens of suspects sometimes netted in a single raid. Among those
arrested have been the alleged military head and “right-hand man” of
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who helped the former Islamic State leader hide
in Idlib near the Turkish border; the erstwhile Islamic State deputy
minister of education; and one of Baghdadi’s wives and several of his
relatives. The fact that these individuals were living in Turkey—and
in some cases went undetected for up to four years—is indicative of
the ease with which the Islamic State has infiltrated Turkey and the
country’s significance to the organization’s leadership.
As the crackdown has intensified, Turkish authorities have thwarted a
growing number of plots, including ambitious plans for mass casualty
attacks and the kidnapping of public figures. Details are generally
scarce, and Turkish politicians sometimes muddy the waters with
outlandish claims, but there is no denying that the threat is real.
Research by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center has shown that
Islamic State attack cells in Turkey have typically been connected to
the organization in Syria and Iraq, and have frequently had access to
firearms and explosives. The same worrisome combination of operational
connections and offensive capabilities has persisted in spite of the
Islamic State’s diminished presence in Syria and Iraq. Such was the
sense of impending peril this past October that the United States
Mission to Turkey suspended consular services across the country and
issued a public alert, citing “credible reports” of potential
terrorist attacks and kidnappings against American citizens and
foreign nationals in Istanbul and other locations.
Parallel to Turkish counterterrorism efforts, the U.S. Treasury has
been diligently working behind the scenes to root out the financial
infrastructure that the Islamic State and other jihadists rely on.
This has resulted in a growing number of designations of terrorist
financiers, including an array of money exchange and transfer
businesses, the largest of which, Al-Khalidi Exchange, was moving
hundreds of thousands of dollars each day. Evidently, Turkey’s efforts
to crack down on terrorist financing have been lacking. This led the
Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global financial watchdog, to
place Turkey on its dreaded “grey list” of countries that are
deficient in the areas of anti-money laundering and counterterrorism
financing in October—a development that has exacerbated Turkey’s
deepening economic crisis.
The FATF listing speaks to a more troubling concern. Although Ankara
was quick to designate the Islamic State as a terrorist organization
and join the global coalition to defeat it, Turkey has long been
accused of negligence when it comes to jihadists. Eyebrows have once
again been raised by the fact that Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim
al-Quraishi—just like his predecessor—was able to live in hiding only
a few kilometers from the Turkish border. There is little question
that the Erdogan government has other counterterrorism priorities,
chief among them the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and associated
Kurdish militias, which are mutual enemies of the Islamic State.
Equally, if not more important, is the Gülen movement—officially known
as the Fethullah Terrorist Organization—which Turkey holds responsible
for the 2016 attempted coup.
In comparison to the fervor with which these and other perceived
threats are pursued, the fight against the Islamic State has been
somewhat lackluster. Thus, in spite of the frequent raids, it appears
that relatively few of the suspects who are detained are formally
arrested and charged. Many, it seems, are simply released following
their initial statements. When cases do go to court, Turkish judges
have been surprisingly lenient. A particularly striking example is the
case of the Syrian cleric Jamal Abdul Rahman Alwi. Despite being
accused of giving the order to burn two Turkish pilots alive in 2016,
Alwi was released pending trial and only later rearrested after public
outcry. Many others, including senior members of the Islamic State,
have benefited from Turkey’s remorse law, which can result in
sentences being greatly reduced or even suspended.
What becomes of such individuals is murky. Turkish authorities have
deported a total of 8,585 terrorism suspects of 102 nationalities
since 2011. However, this figure does not account for Turkish citizens
and also includes individuals seeking to join the PKK and other
organizations. Few other details are known. Some suspects who cannot
be imprisoned or deported are placed under surveillance, but it seems
highly improbable that the security services—likely still recovering
from the loss of thousands of experienced officials caught up in the
anti-Gülenist purge—would be able to adequately monitor suspects.
With the president’s popularity at an all-time low and elections fast
approaching, the Islamic State is likely to become an even lower
priority than it already is. The threat of terrorism has already cast
a shadow over the upcoming elections after an improvised explosive
device was found on a car belonging to a police officer assigned to an
Erdogan rally. And although this has since been blamed on the PKK, it
only reinforces the existing pecking order. Yet, if history is
anything to go by, the Islamic State will be just as much, if not
more, of a problem in Turkey. The group was particularly active in the
lead-up to the general election in 2015 and is unlikely to let a
similar opportunity pass it by. This does not bode well for the months
ahead.
Since 2017, Turkey has been successful in doing just enough to keep
the Islamic State off balance. Though counterterrorism raids are being
conducted at a breathless pace, they are superficially disruptive in
nature. The border with Syria, though much tighter than it once was,
remains permeable; counterterrorism financing has been woefully
deficient; firearms and explosives appear to be readily available; and
plotting is widespread. Under the mounting pressure of domestic
challenges, and with elections on the horizon, it seems unlikely that
Turkey’s success can last.
This is a problem for the international community as well. As a major
tourist destination and a hub for international travel—including a
thriving trade in high-quality fake passports—Turkey is both an
attractive target for terrorists itself and a potential launchpad for
transnational attacks. Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for
policy, caused a stir late last year when he told members of the
Senate Armed Services Committee that the Islamic State’s affiliate in
Afghanistan “could potentially” develop the capability to launch
external attacks within six to twelve months. It is entirely possible
that the Islamic State already has that capability in Turkey. Although
attention is still largely focused elsewhere, it would therefore be
wise to keep a close eye on “Wilayat Turkey.”
*
Sam Mullins is a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center
for Security Studies.
Cüneyt Gürer is a professor at the George C. Marshall European Center
for Security Studies.