Terror, again

TURKEY - In Brief 28 Apr 2016 by Atilla Yesilada

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Turkey faced terror once again, this time in nation’s automotive capital Bursa, in front of the Historic Ulu Mosque. A woman believed to be affiliated with ISIS blew herself up, injuring 13 citizens. Eyewitness accounts have it that she stumbled in the last second, dropping a plastic bag, where she might be carrying a second bag, which she was about to throw into a funeral procession, which could have severely exacerbated the casualty count. All this information needs to be officially confirmed, but I can now verify that ISIS is at war with Turkey, with frequent attacks in planning stage, and some stopped by the security and intelligence agencies without informing the press. According to just released March tourism data, arrivals declined by 10.5% YoY in Q1, with March numbers dropping by 12.5%. I fear that if our security forces fail to catch another terrorist, we might lose the tourism season, and consumer confidence could be hampered gradually. I still blame the government for these terror attacks because the security and intelligence forces have been given too many mandates with very limited resources. They have been extraordinarily successful in cutting down on human smuggling to Greece and apprehending pro-PKK and pro-Gulen sympathizers, as well as putting down a PKK insurgency in Southeastern cities, albeit at the expense of gross human rights violations. However AKP still refuses to attack the root cause of fundamentalist terror, namely the broad-spread infiltration of pro-AKP Islamic charities and prayer networks by ISIS and the sleeper cells. So far ISIS has had refrained from attacking “Moslem and Turkish targets”, limiting its objective to Kurds and “Christ...