For some time now, Istanbullus have been fearfully anticipating an attack by ISIL on civilians. On January 12, it came, with no warning.
Ten German tourists were killed by a suicide bomber in Sultanahmet , the heart of Istanbul’s historic quarter. The bomb had been placed right next to the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, in an area thronged by tourists. Brutal visuals of scattered dead bodies soon began to litter social media. But in a few minutes, some say faster than it took ambulances to get there, the government quickly introduced a ban on media coverage.
As Istanbullus groped for news, the bomber was found to be an ISIL recruit, born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Syria, who had applied for refugee status in Turkey. So far, ISIL’s bombers have focused on attacking the Kurds, with the July bombing of young Kurdish activists at Suruc, and the massacre of over a 100 Kurdish peace marchers at Ankara in October. Now, all of Turkey, Kurdish or not, is at direct war with ISIL, regardless of whether it wants to be or not.
For years, the Erdogan government steadfastly ignored growing ISIL’s expansion, so much so that it has been accused of working with ISIL. While a number of people with ISIL links have been arrested, government rhetoric has focused on Kurdish terrorists in the south east — and their alleged sympathisers — as the main threat to the country. This, even after ISIL announced its intention to take over Istanbul in its monthly publication,
Immediately after the bombing, for instance, Erdogan gave a speech in which he spent 44 seconds talking about the ISIL attack and 10 minutes talking about “crappy academics”. The object of his rage was the declaration by over a thousand Turkish and foreign academics calling for peace in the troubled Kurdish region. One of them was Noam Chomsky. “You are dark people. You are not intellectuals,” ranted Erdogan. That summed up his general policy: play the Kurds against ISIL, in the hope they will cancel each other out.
Clearly, this strategy is not working. ISIL’s picking tourists means they have now emerged into the open, and will strike at civilians, both foreign and local.
Also of significance is the bomber’s refugee status. Turkey has been hugely welcoming of refugees in Europe. Some 2.5 million Syrians have been given shelter. On January 11, Turkey announced a controversial measure: that it will give Syrians work permits to discourage them from crossing illegally into the EU. Until now, many Syrians, denied the ability to work in Turkey, were forced to sell tissues or bottles, depend on the largesse of refugee camps, or simply beg. So the measure is a welcome one, but also a double-edged sword. Will Turkey’s intelligence be equal to the task of keeping ISIL radicals out? The Istanbul bomber’s brother was also a suicide bomber who blew himself up in Syria, and yet the pair went undetected.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that Turkish forces had killed nearly 200 militants across the border. But will it be too little, too late? Meanwhile, Kurdish forces kept up their assault, bombing a police station in south-eastern Turkey and killing five. Turkey is unlikely to be able to handle both the Kurds and ISIL at once, so it will have to pick one. Or else risk getting caught in a pincer movement between ISIL and the Kurds. ISIL would seem to be the sensible choice.
The writer is a journalist based in Istanbul and Bengaluru