The rhetoric from Ankara now seems to suggest that Turkey will lash out at the US and also carry out attacks in Syria, mentioning Kobani, Tel Rifat, Qamishli and other cities that could be hit.
https://www.jpost.com/-By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
An undated handout picture released by Turkish police shows an unidentified blast suspect arrested in Istanbul, Turkey. (photo credit: Turkish Police/Handout via REUTERS)
In the wake of an apparent terrorist attack in Istanbul, Turkey’s authorities have blamed the “PKK/YPG,” two Kurdish groups. Ankara’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has gone further than just blaming these groups; he has alleged that the attack was planned and executed from northern Syria.
The rhetoric from Ankara has shifted overnight, from Sunday evening when Turkish authorities were not sure the explosion was a terror attack to casting a wide net of blame for who is behind the attack.
The Ankara narrative shift is interesting because it is not proceeded from assessing that the explosion was an attack, to finding out who is responsible and then trying to piece together the story. Rather, it has presented a whole conspiracy without even having shown evidence of what happened. For instance, on Monday morning, reports said that a woman was detained and authorities released or leaked the footage quickly to pro-government sources.
The video of the raid on the perpetrator’s alleged apartment in Istanbul shows police finding rolls of clean money, like it had just come from a bank, and a pistol along with a small box of ammunition, in which none of the ammunition had been taken out. While one investigator wears blue gloves, another goes through the suspect’s items without gloves, leaving some questions about their methods. There wasn’t much else in the apartment, except a heater for personal use.
Leaked photos of the woman being detained showed her wearing a bright purple sweatshirt with the words “New York” on it and she appears to be being choked by one of the men detaining her in one photo. It was unclear how the authorities decided to show off the detention of the suspect and also put out a video of her being escorted away.
In video screengrabs released yesterday, some social media users had already identified a woman they believed to be the suspect, showing a woman in camouflage fatigues running from the scene, holding a smartphone. Whereas on Sunday the woman’s face was blurred, by Monday the image had been un-blurred. This followed 12 hours in which Ankara had restricted broadcasts about the terror attack and tried to cut off social media use.
While the official narrative from Ankara on Sunday evening was that the explosion in central Istanbul “could” be terrorism, by the morning it was not just determined it was terrorism, but the perpetrator had been found and every piece of the story apparently cobbled together.
Turkey weaves a blame game together, targets The New York Times with anger
Turkey’s pro-government media and its supporters online have weaved together a complex blame game in the wake of the attack. One target of the anger was The New York Times which was slammed for reporting on the fact that the attack took place in a popular tourist area. Oddly, Ankara’s nationalists online decided that this report was somehow ignoring the victims of the attack and focusing instead on tourism. Some pro-Ankara voices even suggested that Turks would take revenge on the NYT by hacking the site.
Turkey’s interior minister has blamed the PKK, YPG and also slammed the US in the wake of the attack. Reports say that numerous suspects are being sought.
According to the authorities and pro-government media, the perpetrator entered Turkey from Afrin. Afrin is an area that was Kurdish until a Turkish invasion in 2018 led to many of the region’s residents being forced to flee or ethnically cleansed. Today, Afrin is under the control of the Turkish-backed Syrian rebels and also HTS, a group that was affiliated with al-Qaeda. HTS has recently made gains in Afrin, taking over more territory. ISIS members have also been located in this area near the Turkish border.
It’s unclear how a woman would be able to pass from Afrin to Turkey, considering Ankara has built a border wall and fence along the border and has a large security presence to keep Syrians out of Turkey. Nevertheless, Ankara has claimed that Afrin is connected to the attack somehow. This could be an excuse for Ankara to back HTS or other groups increasing their hold over the area or persecuting Kurds as a scapegoat.
Turkey’s authorities have also claimed that the attack is linked to “Ayn al-Arab” which is the Arabic name of the Kurdish city of Kobani. Kobani is a city that was known for resisting ISIS in 2014. Turkish media uses the term “Ayn al-Arab” to erase the town’s Kurdish history, akin to using only “Al-Quds” for Jerusalem to erase its Jewish history.
Kobani is controlled by the YPG and the Syrian regime. From Ankara’s perspective, the YPG is actually the Syrian branch of the “PKK” and therefore a terrorist group. However, the YPG is also part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the anti-ISIS group backed by the US. This complexity means that when Ankara wants to blame “terrorists” for an incident it will not just blame the PKK, but also the YPG and SDF, as well as the US.
This isn’t a new type of narrative from Ankara – Turkey’s leadership has accused the US of backing “terrorists” in Syria for years.
There is no evidence of any YPG or “terrorist” attacks from Syria on Turkey. While Ankara has frequently claimed it is fighting “terrorism” in Syria, there have been no attacks on Turkey and it is Turkey that has invaded Syria, first near Manbij in 2016, then Afrin in 2018 and Serekaniya in 2019.
Turkey demanded the US withdraw from areas such as Kobani in 2019 and US forces did withdraw, moving back towards Hasakah and other areas. Since 2019, Ankara has chosen to use armed drones to target Kurds in northeast Syria. While Ankara claims it is killing “terrorists,” the drone strikes have killed civilian volleyball players and also Kurdish women who work closely with the SDF and US forces. NBC noted that a female Kurdish commander who had “saved American lives” was killed by a Turkish drone strike in July. In July Turkish shelling in northern Iraq, where Ankara also claims to be fighting the PKK, killed eight Arab civilians who were on vacation in northern Iraq.
Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan is returning from the G20 in Indonesia. He slammed the US while he was there, accusing the US of harboring “FETO,” another “terror” group Ankara accuses of being behind a 2016 coup.
When asked about the Istanbul bombing, Turkey’s leader had said that “as of now, of course, it would be wrong if we say that this is terrorism, of course, in the first investigations, but the first developments, the first information the Governor gave us, there is a smell of terror here.” Hours later,Soylu had already claimed a complex terror conspiracy linked to Kobani, Afrin and Syria.
The rhetoric from Ankara now seems to suggest that Turkey will lash out at the US and also carry out attacks in Syria. Soylu has mentioned Kobani, Tel Rifat, Qamishli and other cities that could be targeted. The fact that Turkish media began to bash the NYT and far-right nationalists began to point fingers at the US from the early morning hours of November 14 suggests that this attack will not be seen as just a terror attack, but part of a wide conspiracy. Ankara has used incidents in the past to carry out wars and purges, regardless of evidence.
It appears from some media reports in Turkey that Ankara is already using the claims that the attack was linked to groups in Syria and Iraq as a pretext to launch artillery attacks. In the coming days, it will become more clear if this attack is going to be used by the ruling party as part of an election campaign or to create a new war, or whether Ankara will move on from this.