Turkish Hezbollah

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Turkish Hezbollah (Kurdish: Hizbullahî Kurdî [1], e.T. Kurdish Hezbollah[2][3]) is a Kurdish[4][5][6] Sunni Islamist militant organization, that arose in the late 1980s in response to atrocities committed by Kurdistan Workers Party against non-separatist Kurds in southeastern Turkey, where many have proposed that the group seeks to establish an independent Islamic state.[7][8] The group has been involved in the assassination of Diyarbakir police chief Gaffar Okkan and the bombings of two synagogues, the British consulate in Istanbul and HSBC Bank (Turkey) headquarters, killing 50 and wounding several hundred.[9]

The group is based primarily in Turkey and has no relation to the Hezbollah group based in Lebanon, and its members are primarily from the Sunni branch of Islam.[10]

Tansu Çiller, the former Prime Minister of Turkey and the leader of the True Path Party, admitted to supporting the Turkish Hezbollah by helping provide them with weapons through the Turkish state in 1994.[11][12] Çiller and the Turkish State's direct involvement in the Turkish Hezbollah is primary reason for many public allegations that the group was created and strengthened by the Turkish military in order to fight against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), an insurgent group with aims to establish a Kurdish state in the Middle East.[13] This support has caused over 3,000 unsolved political murders.[14]

Contents

[edit] History

Turkish/Kurdish Hezbollah first appeared in northeastern Turkey in the early 1990s and became a direct threat to the already rising Kurdish separatist movement. The Kurdish Islamist group (of Sunni thought) began as an oppositional force against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), though recently they have targeted both the PKK and the Turkish government.[15]

Hüseyin Velioğlu, the former leader of Turkey's Hezbollah was killed on January 17, 2000 by members of the Turkish police forces (Beykoz, Istanbul).

[edit] Activities

Some of Hezbollah's major attacks include bombings of two synagogue in Istanbul on November 17, 2003, killing 23 and wounding over 300, and less than a week later the bombings of the British consulate and HSBC bank headquarters, killing 27 including the U.K.'s consul-general, Roger Short, and wounding over 300.[9] According to National Review online, "there are clear indications that it is also being inspired, sponsored, and coordinated by foreign elements of al Qaeda."[9] Earlier in the deacde the group was involved in numerous small-scale shootings and suicide bombings in Turkey. In 2000 Turkish police "recovered nearly 70 bodies of Kurdish businessmen and journalists that (Kurdish) Hizballah had tortured and brutally murdered during the mid-to-late 1990s."[4] In February 2001, a 20-man assassination team ambushed the motorcade of Diyarbakir police chief Gaffar Okkan, killing him and five Turkish policemen.[9]

The group expanded its target base beginning in the mid-1990s and modus operandi from killing Kurdistan Workers Party militants to conducting low-level bombings against liquor stores, bordellos, and other establishments that the organization considered "anti-Islamic." In January 2000 Turkish security forces killed Hüseyin Velioğlu, the organization's leader, in a shootout at a safe house in Istanbul. The incident sparked a year-long series of counter-terrorist operations and the detention of 2,000 individuals, arresting several hundred on criminal charges. At the same time, police recovered nearly 70 bodies of Turkish and Kurdish businessmen and journalists that the group had tortured and brutally murdered during the mid-to-late 1990s. The group began targeting official Turkish interests in January 2001 when its operatives assassinated the Diyarbakır police chief in the group’s most sophisticated operation to date. The group did not conduct a major operation in 2002.

Turkish politicians such as President Suleyman Demirel, have sympathized with the Hezbollah's early aims, in what he and others claimed was to protect the people from the Marxist ideologies of the PKK. However, once Hezbollah objectives conflicted with the Turkish state, the group was declared terrorist.[16][17]

In 1998 "Turkish authorities initiated a severe crackdown on Hezbollah's domestic activities, detaining 79 alleged members from both the "armed" and the "scientific" wings of the group. Guns seized during the raids were later matched with four unsolved murders that had occurred between 1993 and 1996 across the southeastern province of Diyarbakir. Other papers and documentation discovered by Turkish security officials enabled them to identify approximately 1,000 additional party supporters and activists." But this does not seem to have diminished the groups activities.[9]

[edit] Location/area of operation

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Turkey, primarily the Diyarbakır region of southeastern Turkey.

[edit] Strength

Possibly a few hundred members and several thousand supporters.[4]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Turkish Hizbullah or Kurdish Hizbullah
  2. ^ The real challenge to secular Turkey
  3. ^ Middle East Quarterly (Murder on the Bosporus)
  4. ^ a b c Turkish-Hizballah
  5. ^ The revival of Kurdish Islamism
  6. ^ Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002 Report
  7. ^ Maskeli Hizbullah’ın hedefi cemaatler.
  8. ^ hagalil.com antisemitismus
  9. ^ a b c d e Terrorized Turkey by Evan Kohlmann
  10. ^ Tales from the crypt.
  11. ^ Anadolu Agency: News in English.
  12. ^ Car bombs Leave Dozens Dead and Hundreds Wounded in Istanbul.
  13. ^ Federation of American Scientists.
  14. ^ Government crackdown against the Hezbollah in Turkey.
  15. ^ Turkish sympathy for militants grows Common Dreams News Center
  16. ^ Hizbullah ya da Hizbul-Kontra.
  17. ^ Turkish-Hizballah a Case Study of Radical Terrorism.

[edit] External links