Turkey, al-Qa'ida, and Afghanistan

A video recently released by al-Qa'ida criticizes the Turkish government's participation in NATO operations in Afghanistan. CNN reports the video features the voice of Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qa'ida's second in command. From CNN:

"Let every free Turkish Muslim who is keen on protecting Islam and his fellow Muslims know that the Turkish forces will serve the Crusader campaign in Afghanistan, which is burning the villages, destroying the houses and killing the women and the children, occupying the lands of the Muslims, fighting the Sharia and spreading lewdness, debauchery and corruption," the speaker says.

"The Turkish troops will carry out the same operations in Afghanistan that the Jews are carrying out in Palestine, so how would the pious, free Turkish Muslim people accept such a crime against Islam and the Muslims?" the speaker asks.

The video also features the appearance of a purportedly Turkish suicide bomber.

Turkey has played an important role in NATO's mission, contributing 1,755 troops to International Security Assistance Force, which contributes to training Afghan security forces and reconstructing urban areas. Turkey does not paricipate in combat operations. However, as the Brookings Institution's Omer Taspinar observes in his column in Today's Zaman, more important than Turkey's troop contribution is its soft power over Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Washington understands that success in Afghanistan will be determined in the southern Pashtun belt on the border with Pakistan and that NATO forces desperately need the cooperation of Pakistan’s army to achieve that. Without Pakistan’s help, it would be impossible to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda effectively. This is also perhaps why Turkey’s contribution to the war effort is analyzed by criteria other than a mere contribution of troops.

To be sure, Washington would welcome more Turkish troops in Afghanistan. But what makes a Turkish contribution more valuable is its “soft power” in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is something that secularist hard-liners do not like to hear, but such power is essentially rooted in Turkey’s Muslim identity and particularly the Islamic roots of the current government in Turkey. For instance, the Financial Times reported last week that “NATO officials also often talk of a fuller engagement with Pakistan by using member Turkey, a Muslim majority state, and its diplomats as facilitators in Islamabad.”

Turkey is probably the best envoy the West can find to talk to Pakistan about the need to change its old habits of using Islamist ideology and loyalty to militant group such as the Taliban in order to exert influence over Afghanistan. No doubt, this is easier said than done. But there are some signs that Islamabad is slowly realizing that the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban and militant groups sponsored and abetted to strike at arch-rival India (such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was behind last year’s Mumbai terrorist attacks) are all part of the same threat. Further evidence that the strategy is working is the capture on Pakistani soil of Mollah Baradar. After decades of supporting Islamist groups in neighboring India and Afghanistan, this is the first major sign that there may be a change of heart in Pakistan. After all, the Taliban was in some measure a creation of Pakistan as it sought to expand its influence into Afghanistan at the end of the Cold War.

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At the end of the day, what both Afghanistan and Pakistan need is better governance. This requires not only security and stability but also some modicum of economic development with jobs and services. This is another area where Turkey’s soft power comes into play. Most analysts agree that Turkish companies and construction firms are the first to take serious risks in the region in order to improve infrastructure projects.

Al-Qa'ida Arrests in Turkey

From the Associated Press:

Turkish police launched a nationwide crackdown on suspected militants linked to the al-Qaida terror network on Friday, rounding up 120 people in simultaneous pre-dawn raids, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

It was not clear if Friday's raids in 16 provinces in this NATO member and western ally country would amount to a major blow to homegrown Islamic militants.

Yeni Safak newspaper this week reported that Turkish police had recently seized video recordings of alleged Turkish al-Qaida militants in Taliban camps in Afghanistan, as well as alleged plans for attacks on Turkish soldiers in Kabul and on police in Turkey. It did not cite a source for the report.

Turkey, NATO's sole Muslim member, took over the rotating command of the NATO peacekeeping operation in Kabul in November and doubled its number of troops to around 1,750. Turkey has also said it is ready to serve as an exit route for U.S. troops' withdrawal from Iraq.

Friday's crackdown follows another raid on suspected militants in the cities Ankara and Adana last week in which police rounded up and interrogated some 40 people and reportedly seized documents detailing al-Qaida activities. Twenty-five of them were charged with membership in a terrorist organization while the rest were released.

Those detained Friday's raids include a faculty member of the Yuzunci Yil University in the eastern city of Van, who is suspected of recruiting students at the campus and other people through the Internet and of sending them to Afghanistan for training, Anatolia reported, citing unnamed police officials. The suspect was identified by his initials M.E.Y. only.

Anatolia said other suspects included some local leaders, university students, and people believed to be spreading al-Qaida propaganda.

Four bombs attacks carried out in Istanbul in November 2003 killed 57 people, injuring over 700 others, most of them Turkish Muslims. The first two bombs targeted two Jewish synagogues, and the second two, carried out five days later, targeted the British Consulate and HSBC bank. The three gunmen who attacked the U.S. consulate in July 2008 were also thought to have connections to al-Qa'ida, though much less direct. That attack killed three Turkish police officers charged with guarding the consulate. Two alleged al-Qa'ida members were eventually charged in connection with that attack.

Al-Qa'ida Planning Attacks in Turkey?

The EDM's Emrullah Uslu speculates that Israeli airline El-Al's decision to suspend flights to Antalya is due to fear of an impending terrorist attack by al-Qa'ida. Uslu cites foiled al-Qa'ida plans to target the American, British, and Israeli consulates in İstanbul, in relation to which 38 suspected al-Qa'ida agents were arrested in December, as well as a series of robberies that have occurred across Turkey in recent months. According to Uslu,

[t]he recent upsurge in jewelry store and post office robberies, however, is a new trend. Al-Qaeda spends thousands of dollars for each attack. The recent spate of robberies may indicate that the police have successfully isolated the individual al-Qaeda cells so that they cannot obtain cash from the central body or that the main organization has stopped financing local operations.

If al Qaeda cuts off funding for its local branches so that each group has to find its own means of financing for the attacks, then the recent series of robberies could be a possible sign of a major operation in the making. Although the TNP [Turkish National Police] works hard and prevents most of the attacks in the planning stage, the recent upsurge in anti-Israel sentiment in Turkey may result in al-Qaeda members obtaining more informational assistance about potential Israeli targets from the local population.

Authorities still suspect al-Qa'ida involvement in last July's attack on the U.S. Consulate in İstanbul, which left 3 police officers dead.