PULSE of TURKEY No: 68 ............................ NOVEMBER 7^th,  1998

The revelations of the Istanbul police on November 2^nd about the Cologne-based Turkish Islamic fundamentalists were both shocking and alarming. It was shocking because the aim was to kill the entire Turkish Government, including the President and top commanders by a kamikaze aircraft full of explosives diving and crashing into Ataturk’s Mausoleum during the 75^th anniversary celebrations of the Republic on October 29^th. It was alarming because it may be indicative of the commencement of the third stage of terrorism against the Turkish Republic.

Highlights of the first two stages of terrorism against Turkey

The first stage was in the seventies and early eighties when ASALA, the Armenian terrorist organization, killed nearly 40 Turkish diplomats, mostly of ambassador level, and wounded hundreds throughout the world. Eventually, during the 1980-1983 interregnum, the Turkish Intelligence Organization, MIT, organized ultra-nationalist activists and set them against the Armenian terrorists, killing them in France, Lebanon and other places with the warning, “From now on for every Turkish diplomat assassinated, 10 Armenian millionaires financing ASALA will be killed.” This message was driven home and Armenian terrorism came to an end.

The claim “terrorism ended” is incorrect. It changed form and continued in a different and much more bloodthirsty way, as a racialist and secessionist uprising. On August 15^th, 1984, two groups of terrorists, 150-strong each, infiltrated into Turkey from Iran and Iraq, and attacked the Gendarmerie stations and civilian targets in Eruh, Siirt and Şemdinli, Hakkari. They returned to Herakol Mountains to join the other Kurdish guerrillas headed by Abdullah Öcalan. The perpetration of indiscriminate murders in Eruh and Şemdinli was the beginning of a long fight against the PKK which has so far claimed the lives of 30,000 people – over 5000 soldiers and security personnel, over 5000 civilians and the terrorists themselves. In the aftermath of the outbreak of the Gulf War in August 1990, this fight reached civil war dimensions with the heavy weapons of the Iraqi Army captured in Northern Iraq, finding their way to the PKK along with non-Turkish PKK terrorists. Back in 1994 Öcalan told his fellow gunmen “We have failed to militarize. We must now politicize.” These words were both indicative of his failure to become an “army” despite enormous external financing and logistics and the intention to transform into a political force in the world with the help of the West. These efforts are hopelessly continuing even today with the PKK Parliamentary sessions in exile in Rome and elsewhere. In the meantime, the PKK is trying to prove that it has not been “eradicated” militarily, with such desperate attempts like the hijacking on Republic Day of a THY aircraft and other acts of violence mostly through infiltration from Iraq and Iran. This year has been a turning point in the PKK’s eventual disappearance with the murder in 10 months of its 1,684 guerrillas, capture of 165 others and surrender of 11.

Now that the top man of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, has actually bowed out of the fight seeking a place for himself in the world with no effective control over the terrorist organization any more, a group of terrorists have arrived from Germany with even much more bloodier terrorist plans. Given the fact that the second-in-command of the PKK, Şemdin Sakık is in prison in Turkey, the headquarters in Syria are lost and the PKK is clearly on its deathbed, is this new terrorist development the beginning of a third stage in terrorism against Turkey? Is the PKK’s ethnical and secessionist terrorism now being replaced by an even more serious religion-based terrorism by fundamentalist fanatics with external financing and help? And what are their chances of success in being a bigger headache and stumbling block to Turkey’s economic development than the PKK has been over the last 15 years?

Islamic fundamentalists take to arms against Turkey

The answers to these questions rest in closer scrutiny of the latest terrorist attempt and the forces behind them.

The Governor of Istanbul, Erol Çakır, told a press conference in Istanbul on November 2^nd that 21 Islamic fundamentalists who arrived in Turkey separately by cars as from the beginning of October to perpetrate the most violent terrorist attacks ever in this country were arrested on October 28^th.

According to the information given by the Governor, these militants belong to the Cologne-based religious fundamentalist group AFID (Anadolu Federe Islam Devleti = The Federated Islamic State of Anatolia) headed by Metin Kaplan. His father, Cemalettin Kaplan, was the Mufti of Adana and Deputy Head of the Religious Affairs Organization in Ankara for many years. During the 1980 military rule in Turkey he went to Germany and founded ICCB (Islami Cemaatler ve Cemiyetler Birliği = The Union of Islamic Communities and Societies) in 1984 with the end in view of founding a theocratic Islamic State in this country. In 1993 the ICCB became AFID with a more distinct title to show its separatist aims over Turkey. Cemalettin Kaplan and, upon his death in 1995, his son Metin Kaplan became the self-styled “Caliph” of this theocratic State which has Emirs to govern its provinces.

The last batch of the suicide team reported to Mehmet Demir, the “Emir of Sıvas”, upon their arrival in Istanbul by car on October 17^th. Under Demir’s orders, the 21 militants were separated into two groups. The first group of 15 militants were charged with raiding one of Istanbul’s big mosques, the Fatih Mosque, on October 29^th for activism and three of them would engage in an armed fight to death against the police. They had already buried arms and explosives in the garden of the Mosque. The rest would make their way to the Çarşamba district of Fatih where they had their fellow sect members. Growing into a bigger activist group they would start an armed uprising with green “jihad” banners and displaying posters they had already prepared.These posters read: “Jihad means breaking the chain of slavery branded on the Muslims”, “We will reconquer Istanbul with our prayer beads and prayers”, “Kemalists have again congragated in their temple”, (“Temple” being the Mausoleum).

The rehearsal carried out a day before by the terrorists at Fatih Mosque gave them away thanks to the vigilance of the Istanbul Police and anti-terror teams. More truly the Turkish intelligence had already learnt two months before that the Kaplan group in Germany was preparing massive terrorist actions in the Mosque Fatih and Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia) Museum in Istanbul. They were caught with their arms, explosives and documents. One of the detainees confessed to the police about the other and much more critical attempt of the perpetraters of the second group.

The second group would engage in an even more violent terrorist action. On the morning of October 29^th when the President and all the Government members and military and civilian rulers were in the Mausoleum for the 75^th anniversary Republic Day celebrations, an aircraft they had hired and loaded with explosives would dive and crash into the Mausoleum killing as many people as possible. To be able to get their target, the aircraft would fly a banner inscribed “Atam İzindeyiz” (Atatürk, We are on your trail).

This second group headed by the Cologne and Hanover youth organization chief, Tuncay Gög, went to Bursa on October 23^rd and rented an aircraft from Şafak Air. A 29-year old militant in this group, Kuddusi Armağan, had a pilot licence and made a successful test flight over Bursa. The team rented a farm in Sivrihisar on the Ankara-Antalya highway to land and hide the aircraft. According to the plan, the aircraft would be flown to this farm and hidden there on October 28^th to be used in Ankara the following morning. Three big gas cylinders and 200 kg of dynamite had already been stored in this farmhouse. They had been hidden in the ground in Gerede, Bolu and then moved to the Sivrihisar farmhouse. While everything was ready for action, Şafak Air in Bursa would not deliver the aircraft to Armağan and his friends on October 28^th because the weather was not suitable for flying. This unexpected setback forced the terrorists to postpone the kamikaze flight until November 10^th, the anniversary of Atatürk’s death when there would be a similar ceremony in the Mausoleum.

When the first group was taken into custody and confessed everything, 23 people, including the Emirs of Sıvas and Ağrı, Mehmet Demir and Muhlis Özölçer, and the captain of the 21 activists from Germany, Tuncay Gög, were arrested. The judiciary later released two of them and the other 21 are now awaiting trial.

Turkish fundamentalists in Germany

AFID commonly know the Kaplan group, is not the biggest religious Turkish fundamentalist faction in Germany. It has less than 2000 followers, according to Turkish figures and 1300, according to the German daily Bild. An even bigger fundamentalist faction is the Sofu group in Berlin. It is a splinter group from the Kaplans, and its leader Halil Ibrahim Sofu was killed in Germany allegedly upon Metin Kaplan’s orders, but the criminals got away with this murder.

Metin Kaplan has been in touch with Turkish University youths in Germany. He has also been making contacts to procure arms. In his attempts to expand his organization and activities, Metin Kaplan has sent some of his followers to Iran’s holy city Kum and the Fethu’l Islam religious school in Syria for training. The Saudi billionaire terrorist Chief Usame bin Ladin who is charged with the explosions against the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was also among his targets in this expansion efforts. On May 3^rd, 1998 Metin Kaplan issued a fax message declaring Jihad against the United States when it bombed Afghanistan and the Sudan in retaliation to Usame bin Ladin’s terrorism. Also at an address to his followers in the Cologne sports hall in June Metin Kaplan said, “It is now the time to hit both Turkey and Europe. We will soon proclaim a very important fetwa to the world. As God is our witness, we will raise our voice.” The German Government’s reactions to these activities were fining Kaplan DM1000 for illegally engaging in political activities.

Turkey naturally took immediate diplomatic action seeking Metin Kaplan’s extradition to Turkey, after his latest terrorist attempt. The first indications are that these efforts will not be successful. It is claimed that Metin Kaplan is now a German citizen. Even if he is not, he has been accorded political asylum in that country and it is not going to change according to Turkey’s initial contacts with Bonn. Nevertheless, the Director-General of the Police, Necati Bilican, will head a Turkish delegation to Germany on November 10^th with files full of documents about these subversive activities and the German Intelligence Organization’s revelations about these activities are also included. In fact, this fundamentalist organization was banned in Germany five years ago at Turkey’s initiative, but it did not stop the Kaplan group from turning some parts of Cologne into a small Tehran or Metin Kaplan from going scot-free in his activities.

Turkish clergymen were sent to several parts of Germany during the 1980 interregnum to give the Turkish community religious teaching as a safeguard against political and social distortions, such as communism or drug abuse. In doing so it was not thought that religious distortion could be worse than the other abuses if care was not taken about this teaching. The difficulty about financing these clergymen in Germany was silently eliminated in the convenience provided by the interregnum’s non-parliamentary rule. A Saudi Arabian religious organization “Jamiat-ul Islam”, known to be a front organization of a superpower intelligence service, was going to finance these Turkish clergymen in Germany and what’s more directly, i.e. giving them their salaries itself and not through the Turkish Government.

One of the outcomes of these silently run activities was the appearance of the Cemalettin Kaplan faction which President Evren, after having sobered up, described as “the black voice”. In 1984 Cemalettin Kaplan’s Turkish nationality was removed, but it was later restored in 1992 upon return to democracy.

Also, the ongoing investigation in Turkey about organized crime and the Mafia infiltration into the Turkish Government provides evidence that this religious fundamentalism is not an isolated case, but that it is a part of the whole. Metin Kaplan was a partner of Şükrü Elverdi, Erol Evcil and other ultra-nationalist right-wing activists currently in prison or on the run, but the details of these complicated murky affairs require a separate article in Pulse’s next issue. uras@ada.net.tr, November 7^th, 1998

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