Attack is a strategic ISIL move, according to Ankara expert

Deniz Zeyrek - ANKARA

AFP photo

Ankara has evaluated the July 20 bomb attack on civilians in Suruç in the southern provice of Şanlıurfa as an attempt to force the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) into an encounter with the state and the government, security experts have told daily Hürriyet, adding jihadists were also sending a message to the government to stop operations on its members. 

“’If you continue the operations, you will also become a target’ is their message,” one expert told Hürriyet, adding they had also been successful in putting the government and the Kurdish movement into a confrontation. 

The expert, one of the prominent names in Turkey’s struggle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), told Hürriyet the recent incident was almost as strategic as the bomb attack in the southern province of Diyarbakır during an HDP public rally only days before the July 7 general election, which cost four lives and caused anger within the party toward the government. 

The expert also highlighted the attacks on the HDP election offices in Adana and Mersin. 

The expert said ISIL has so far targeted the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and groups which support the Kurdish fighters in Syria, namely the HDP and the PKK. 

Another common side effect of these attacks has been creating a dispute between the HDP and the government, which the party blames for the raids, according to the expert. 

ISIL also wants to disturb a Turkey-Democratic Union Party (PYD) team-up, which led way to a jihadist defeat in Kobane, the Syrian border town which resisted attacks for four months last year before ISIL members withdrew.  

The fact that Turkey’s operations against ISIL are on the rise is another reason for the strategic attacks, the expert said.