Opinion Pakistan in Turkey’s mirror
Having helped create the IS, Ankara has reasons to fear a Taliban-like blowback.
Last week, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declared that Turkey is ready “for any cooperation in the fight against terrorism.” But Turkey’s dilemma is far more grave than its leaders realise.
Having helped create the IS, Ankara has reasons to fear a Taliban-like blowback.
Last week, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declared that Turkey is ready “for any cooperation in the fight against terrorism.” But Turkey’s dilemma is far more grave than its leaders realise. Indeed, Turkey’s current situation resembles the early years of Pakistan’s sponsorship of the Taliban. The Islamic State is recruiting militants in Turkey. And failure to clean its own house now could lead Turkey down the path of “Pakistanisation,” whereby a resident jihadist infrastructure causes Sunni extremism to ingrain itself deeply within the fabric of society.
Although Turkey now recognises the threat, it has yet to come to terms with its own responsibility for helping to create it. As Francis J. Ricciardone Jr, the former American ambassador to Turkey, has pointed out, Ankara supported radical groups, including the Nusra Front. Indeed, during the early days of Syria’s civil war, jihadist groups funnelled fighters and resources through Turkey into Syria. Turkey’s intervention in the Syrian civil war parallels Pakistan’s support of the Taliban to affect the course of the Afghan civil war. But the jihadism abetted by Pakistan did not remain across the Afghan border. Turkey may now be witnessing the beginnings of a similar blowback. While the magnitude of Turkey’s recent engagement of jihadist proxies isn’t comparable to Pakistan’s long history of jihadist sponsorship, the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s ill-fated relationship with the Sunni extremists of Pakistan’s Deobandi movement is still instructive for Turkey.
Pakistan’s experience with blowback began prior to Bhutto’s tenure, when General Zia ul-Haq’s regime backed mujahideen militias as proxies to combat Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Organised by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate with assistance from the United States and Saudi Arabia, the recruitment networks within Pakistan started a radicalisation process among segments of Pakistan’s population. In 1994, Bhutto began to abet militancy to secure Pakistani objectives in Afghanistan. The Bhutto government facilitated a paramilitary force of thousands of madrasa students to cross the border and take control of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province. With Pakistan’s help, this militia of “Taliban,” literally “students,” conquered large swaths of Afghan territory and declared its commander, Mullah Omar, to be caliph. Their militancy soon crossed the border. After the initial stage of mobilising volunteers and weapons for jihad in Afghanistan, a second phase developed in which Pakistan witnessed a wave of anti-Shiite violence, including bombings of Karachi’s major Shiite mosques by the Taliban’s sister organization in Pakistan, Sipah-e Sahaba.
The Turkish government’s decision to turn a blind eye to IS activity within its borders has similarly led to the extremists’ increasing influence in certain areas of Turkey’s major cities. The recent and unprecedented arson attacks on Shiite mosques in Istanbul may indicate that Turkey is entering this second phase. Pakistan’s final and most dangerous stage of extremism occurred when the flow of militants and resources was reversed. Turkey has not experienced this stage yet. But the IS may find fertile recruiting ground among Turkey’s 1.3 million Syrian refugees. If the IS’s Turkish networks remain intact, Turkey runs the risk that homegrown militants will be empowered by the return of fighters from IS territory in Syria and Iraq.
Tanchum teaches at Tel Aviv University and is a fellow at the Harry S. Truman Institute at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Karaveli is senior fellow, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and the Silk Road Studies Programme.
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