1. 4/08/2016, 2:06 PMTurkey is caught in a storm of terror from domestic and international forces | Herald Sun
Page 1 of 4http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/turkey-is-caught-in-a-st…international-forces/news-story/582081fdbc4d7503aef1b281926e6d8d
Turkey is caught in a storm of terror from domestic and
international forces
“IF states, as all humanity, fail to join forces and wage a joint fight against terrorist
organisations, all the possibilities that we dread in our minds will come true one by
one.”
So said Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a written statement responding
to Tuesday night’s attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk airport.
In recent years many have had reason to be critical of the Turkish leader but on this
occasion it is hard to disagree with him. Turkey is facing a rapidly worsening perfect
storm: a multidimensional crisis in which it faces two separate terrorist movements —
one domestic and one international — deteriorating regional circumstances and a
weakened economy exacerbated by a sharp lunge from democratic reform to
authoritarianism.
The attack on Tuesday night bears all the hallmarks of an Islamic State attack: guns
and IEDs being used by attackers working together in a co-ordinated, military-style
attack focused on a soft target in a suicide mission. The domestic Kurdish terrorists
who have also been responsible for multiple attacks over the past 12 months generally
focus on targeting police and military personnel and seek to avoid suicide.

2. 4/08/2016, 2:06 PMTurkey is caught in a storm of terror from domestic and international forces | Herald Sun
Page 2 of 4http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/turkey-is-caught-in-a-s…international-forces/news-story/582081fdbc4d7503aef1b281926e6d8d
IS is very different. As early as May 2013, in a twin car-bomb attack on the border town
of Reyhanli that killed 52, IS was claiming credit for attacks in Turkey’s south, including
the targeting of police in March 2014, Diyarbakir in June 2015 and Suruc in July 2015.
The Suruc attack, 10km north of Syrian Kobani, which killed 32 Kurdish activists,
resulted in the resumption of open hostilities between Turkish security forces and
Kurdish militants — an outcome that appears to have been just what IS intended.
Over the past 12 months there have been a series of attacks by IS, and by Kurdish
militants, in Ankara, the national capital, and in Istanbul, the financial and cultural
capital, beginning with a massive suicide bombing in Ankara on October 10 that killed
103 civilians.
The bombers targeted a Kurdish peace protest but the attack appears to have been
the work of IS. It launched further attacks in the two cities, including suicide attacks in
the heart of Istanbul in January and March this year.
Turkey is particularly vulnerable to these sorts of attacks because it is now home to a
big IS support network, with strong links between Istanbul and the Syrian border.
When the civil war in Syria broke out in 2011, Erdogan lobbied Syrian leader Bashar al-
Assad to step aside and allow reform. When Assad refused the entreaties of his
erstwhile friend, Erdogan responded by openly supporting rebels fighting the Syrian
regime. So for several years the flow of foreign fighters through Turkey to Syria was
allowed to run more freely than was in Turkey’s, or anyone else’s, best interests.
That began to change very sharply at the beginning of last year. Turkey by that point
had joined an international coalition fighting IS and was itself taking part in operations.
In July 2015 it opened its air bases in Incirlik and Diyarbakir to the US to stage missions
into IS territory. At the same time it launched its own aerial missions against IS.

3. 4/08/2016, 2:06 PMTurkey is caught in a storm of terror from domestic and international forces | Herald Sun
Page 3 of 4http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/turkey-is-caught-in-a-s…international-forces/news-story/582081fdbc4d7503aef1b281926e6d8d
A Turkish anti-riot policeman stands guard at Ataturk airport.
IS responded by declaring its open hostility towards Erdogan’s government,
proclaiming that it was working towards the fall of Constantinople (Istanbul) in its
Turkish language magazine of the same name (Konstantiniyye). Recognising the threat
posed by IS, Turkish authorities have arrested more than 1200 alleged IS supporters
over the past 12 months.
It is easy to find fault with the Turkish Government for allowing the large-scale flow of
foreign fighters to continue for as long as it did and for being provoked into reopening
hostilities with Kurdish terrorists after years of successful negotiation. Many Turks are
sharply critical of Erdogan for his crackdown on the media and civil society, observing
that it has gone beyond obvious voices of dissent to target senior intelligence, police
and military officials the President identifies as being personally disloyal. Undoubtedly
that has contributed to the weakening of Turkish society in general and the security
community in particular, just at a time that Turkey is facing its greatest crisis in
decades.
None of those criticisms, however, make the Turkish people deserving of the relentless
campaign of violence that they have been suffering. Erdogan and his administration
may have made mistakes but he is right in recognising that the crisis that his country is
facing is part of a bigger regional and international crisis that the global community
must face together.

4. 4/08/2016, 2:06 PMTurkey is caught in a storm of terror from domestic and international forces | Herald Sun
Page 4 of 4http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/turkey-is-caught-in-a-s…international-forces/news-story/582081fdbc4d7503aef1b281926e6d8d
Istanbul’s airport was targeted on Tuesday night partly in reprisal for Turkey taking a
firm stance against IS, a stance reinforced by its restoration of diplomatic relations with
Russia and Israel this past week. Whereas in the past IS was reluctant to attack Turkey
and deprive itself of major supply routes and opportunities, it has now turned all-out
on attacking this struggling Muslim democracy. The targeting of Istanbul was also a
crime of opportunity, just as the focus on airports as vulnerable soft targets represents
an opportunistic calculation.
The attack on Brussels airport in March was proof of how easy and effective such
attacks can be. Australian airports are vulnerable and those in our Southeast Asian
region — where there is extensive support for IS and access to weapons — even more
so.
Erdogan is right to say this is everyone’s problem. We are in this together.
Greg Barton is Professor of Global Islamic Politics at the Alfred Deakin Institute,
Deakin University