2008_10_SRP_CornellKaraveli_Turkey

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Svante E. Cornell and Halil Magnus Karaveli
front, nevertheless many observers doubted the authenticity of the claim,
calling it instead a pure Al Qaeda operation.
More consequential perhaps is Turkish Hizbullah, unrelated to its Middle
Eastern namesake. Created with Iranian support in the 1980s, Hizbullah
came to gain strength in the Kurdish areas of Turkey, capitalizing on the
dominance of the more orthodox Shafi’i school and the lack of following for
the PKK’s Marxist-Leninist ideology. Indeed, Hizbullah came into violent
confrontation with the PKK in the early 1990s, something that led to
unconfirmed speculations that the Turkish military supported or even
created the group. What is clear is that the military refrained from targeting
Hizbullah until it defeated the PKK following the capture of its leader,
Abdullah Öcalan, and possibly allowed the group to stage training camps
without interference. In 2000-2002, as the group had turned its attention from
the PKK to civilian targets deemed un-Islamic as well as the Turkish state,
the security forces began directly targeting the group and practically
decimated it within a few years. 8 Following this, the group appears to have
replaced its violent campaign with one to seek support among the local
Kurdish population by social program, akin to the Hamas experience.
These two organizations, like smaller radical groups in Turkey, stand out by
their foreign linkages. With the possible exception of the Al Qaedaconnected
2003 attacks, neither has been a major force in the 2000s. Turkey
has hence so far mainly succeeded in keeping violent Islamic extremism
under control. Whether this will continue to be the case depends largely on
the ongoing struggle between secularism and Islam. But barring a major
upheaval that would introduce authoritarian rule repressing expressions of
political Islam, there is little to suggest that the pattern of the past decades
would be reversed. In the unlikely event that a repressive anti-Islamic regime
emerges, however, a conceivable consequence could well be the radicalization
of parts of the Islamic community in Turkey.
8 Soner Çağaptay and Emrullah Uslu, ”Hizballah in Turkey Revives: Al Qaeda’s
Bridge between Europe and Iraq?” Policy Watch no 946, Washington Institute for Near
East Policy, January 2005.