Turkey, ISIS, Kurds and Syria

[gawkrodger]

Reports seem to be coming through that the Turkish lawyer who was nicked for saying the PKK wasn't a terrorist organisation on Turkish CNN has just been shot dead by police

 

[butchersapron]

Reports seem to be coming through that the Turkish lawyer who was nicked for saying the PKK wasn't a terrorist organisation on Turkish CNN has just been shot dead by police

Shot at a press conference.

 

[gawkrodger]

Shot at a press conference.

And Turkish regime media reporting it as he was assassinated by the PKK!

 

[agricola]

And Turkish regime media reporting it as he was assassinated by the PKK!

... and also that the attack was against the Police, and he accidentally got shot in the head.

 

[miss direct]

Some really awful videos of the incident. Police already gassing protesters in Istanbul.

 

[butchersapron]

Remember this article i posted back in october about the potential planned Syrianization of Turkey and its argument that Erdogan has now moved to a "strategy may be summed up by the following formula: if you cannot take Turkey into Syria, then bring Syria into Turkey!" and it then lists all the potential elements for this syrianisation/civil war - well have a read of this and cross-ref with those elements suggested in the original piece:

Who controls the masked men — the ‘Esedullah team’ — now terrorizing Kurds in southeast Turkey?

Judging by the extent of the destruction and bloodshed, one could conclude the Turkish state has reverted to its familiar, heavy-handed style of “problem resolution.” Yet, some images captured by the media and witness accounts point to a new, alarming element unseen in the country so far. In the town of Idil in Sirnak province, for instance, special operations police forces, clad in black and wearing balaclavas, were filmed celebrating a “successful” operation by firing in the air and chanting "Allahu akbar" (God is great). Police and soldiers fighting in the Kurdish areas are known to be using nationalist slogans and symbols, but the use of religious ones is unprecedented.

Moreover, grisly graffiti with racist, militarist and misogynic messages have appeared on the walls in neighborhoods placed under curfew for security operations. A new term has emerged: "Esedullah team" (team of Allah’s lions), which has been inscribed on the walls as a signature, with variations including “the Esedullah team is here” or “the Esedullah team has arrived.”

Representatives of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have expressed dismay at how “different” the security forces operating in cut-off neighborhoods are. “They point guns at women and children. They force men to lie face down and then stamp on their hands, feet and backs. They know no law. Their faces are covered and no one even knows who they are,” HDP lawmaker Caglar Demirel said last week.

In remarks to the Diken news site, residents of Diyarbakir’s Sur district, which has seen some of the worst curfews, offered other disturbing descriptions of the masked men. “They cover their faces. Some have long beards and look as if drugged,” one resident said. Another man expressed doubt that the men were police at all. He said, “The police here are not the normal police of the state. They have long black beards and don’t look like police at all. I don’t believe they are actually police. With their long beards, they look more like Islamic State [IS] militants than the police of the state.”

As the concerns of the Esedullah teams grow, lawmakers from the HDP and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) took the issue to parliament last week. In a written question to Interior Minister, HDP lawmaker Idris Baluken, an HDP lawmaker for Diyarbakir claimed that “the masked men who call themselves the Esedullah team” looked like IS militants and chanted “IS slogans,” spoke a language other than Turkish or Kurdish, used force against civilians “mercilessly” while chanting "Allahu akbar" and appeared “to take inspiration from the methods used by IS.”

 

[coley]

Here's an interesting piece - The Syrianization of Turkey. Main argument is that Erdogan was planning to launch full scale invasion of Syria through Rojava if he failed to get his majority in the Nov elections. Russia's intervention was to stop this and head off the threat of a massive full out regional war. Erdogan has now moved to a "strategy may be summed up by the following formula: if you cannot take Turkey into Syria, then bring Syria into Turkey!" and it then lists all the potential elements for this syrianisation/civil war.

(Author a trot of the old school i believe, which might explain the rather odd view of what russia is up to).

Thought it quite a good summary of what Erdogan is up to, quite informative

 

[miss direct]

There's been an explosion at a metro station.
There have been warnings about public transport for quite a while.
Right in rush hour I feel sick

 

[butchersapron]

There's been an explosion at a metro station.
There have been warnings about public transport for quite a while.
Right in rush hour I feel sick

Any news you can pass on...understand if not poss

 

[miss direct]

It's breaking news...at least one dead, multiple injured...some saying a transformer, some saying a car bomb.

 

[not-bono-ever]

reuters saying transformer explosion. we have heard this before iirc

 

[butchersapron]

CNN Türk ENG
@CNNTURK_ENG

#BREAKING Istanbul Gov Vasip Şahin: 1 person lightly injured. Cause of blast unknown, evaluating all possibilities.

 

[miss direct]

I call bollocks. Just as a plane doesn't just "happen" to crash in the Sinai....a transformer doesn't just happen to blow up during rush hour on a week day.

 

[Pickman's model]

I call bollocks. Just as a plane doesn't just "happen" to crash in the Sinai....a transformer doesn't just happen to blow up during rush hour on a week day.

they can do. i would reserve judgement on it tho for an hour or so to see what they say then.

 

[miss direct]

Fair enough. I just don't trust any official line here.

 

[Pickman's model]

Fair enough. I just don't trust any official line here.

and why should you?

 

[teqniq]

Court asks for expert examination of Gollum character

Because no decision was reached in the fourth hearing of a case in which Aydın-based physician Dr. Bilgin Çiftçi was accused of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after sharing a meme comparing Erdoğan's facial expressions to the Gollum character in the “The Lord of the Rings” movies, a court has demanded an expert examination to investigate Gollum's character to decide whether a comparison with him is an insult.
In October 2015, Çiftçi was expelled from the Public Health Institution of Turkey (THSK) after sharing a meme that compared images of Erdoğan to the fictional character known for his grotesque appearance, showing them both eating, expressing surprise and amazement, thereby allegedly insulting the president....

 

[sihhi]

Remember this article i posted back in october about the potential planned Syrianization of Turkey and its argument that Erdogan has now moved to a "strategy may be summed up by the following formula: if you cannot take Turkey into Syria, then bring Syria into Turkey!"

Be careful of Sungur Savran - he is the leader-theoretician of DSIP the SWP's Turkey branch.
For over a decade the line was that the Turkish government should be supported in its constitutional changes against the military. Now since 2013 when its own people were raided for the first time, the situation in Turkey is something like Germany 1934.

There is no Syrianization, the Esedullahs and others are simply far-right native-Sunni Turkists within the non-conscript armed forces and special forces. They have always been at the forefront of the war against Kurdish nationalism in the 1990s in particular.

 

[camouflage]

The Russians have just laid out their case linking the Daesh oil trade with the Erdogan regime using large slabs of strong evidence including satellite imagery.

Now watch Western media completely ignore it (as it's been aired live on RT- that should be easy enough, RT -O /dev/null) and watch the likes of butchersapron play down the role of Daesh oil trade and its importance in maintaining the death-cults operations with a deluge of Left-washed mumbo-jumbo.

 

[laptop]

Eh? You too are treating it all as a football game?

For the record: Both Russia and Turkey are oppressive authoritarian kleptocracies, each in its way cynically self-serving.

 

[camouflage]

Eh? You too are treating it all as a football game?

For the record: Both Russia and Turkey are oppressive authoritarian kleptocracies, each in its way cynically self-serving.

a ball game where one side kicks off wars and regime-changes that end up with hundreds of thousands slaughtered by death-cults, chaos and extremism... and where legitimate movements for political reform are hijacked and militarised by the Usual Suspects?

 

[Pickman's model]

Eh? You too are treating it all as a football game?

For the record: Both Russia and Turkey are oppressive authoritarian kleptocracies, each in its way cynically self-serving.

for the record i'm getting ready to enter the dugout

 

[butchersapron]

a ball game where one side kicks off wars and regime-changes that end up with hundreds of thousands slaughtered by death-cults, chaos and extremism... and where legitimate movements for political reform are hijacked and militarised by the Usual Suspects?

Why are you calling the regime that you support death-cultists?

 

[elbows]

The Russians have just laid out their case linking the Daesh oil trade with the Erdogan regime using large slabs of strong evidence including satellite imagery.

Now watch Western media completely ignore it (as it's been aired live on RT- that should be easy enough, RT -O /dev/null) and watch the likes of butchersapron play down the role of Daesh oil trade and its importance in maintaining the death-cults operations with a deluge of Left-washed mumbo-jumbo.

I watched some western media report it, and the claim that Erdogan profits personally. So your prediction is completely shit already.

Russia aren't coming out with this stuff because they think the Daesh oil trade is crucial to maintaining operations, its because they are trying to get their own back on Turkey.

 

[camouflage]

I watched some western media report it, and the claim that Erdogan profits personally. So your prediction is completely shit already.

Russia aren't coming out with this stuff because they think the Dash oil trade is crucial to maintaining operations, its because they are trying to get their own back on Turkey.

What did they say?

Putin: "Russia Smash! "
Conspiraloon Putin lashes out at Turkeys President
uses military satellites to spy on staunch NATO ally​

are you saying they are trying to get their own back on Turkey for shooting down their jet whilst it was attacking jihadi associated forces in Syria? Yes, I agree.

 

[elbows]

Well I don't have much time at the moment so I've only had a chance to see how the BBC reported it earlier.

The report is quite long. When it came to the Russian briefing, they reported it with the degree of cynicism and negative tone they often have reserved for Russia and a number of others.

eg:

The Russian defence ministry does not usually invite foreign journalists to its media briefings on Syria. But on Wednesday it made an exception. It had a message it wanted the whole world to hear: that the faces of Turkey's leaders, including President Erdogan, were "smeared with stolen oil".

Invited journalists and military attaches were shown satellite images and grainy video footage, purporting to show tanker trucks with oil crossing from IS-held territory into Turkey. But, from what I could tell, no evidence was presented to implicate the Turkish president. He has accused Russia of slander.

After the shooting down of the Russian bomber by Turkey last week, the war of words continues between Moscow and Ankara. Listening to the military officials at this briefing, you could hear the anger in their voices. Their strong language reflects their president's conviction that Turkey has "stabbed Russia in the back".

The defence ministry cited satellite images that it said showed oil tankers travelling from IS-held territory to Turkey. The trucks, it said, travelled to three locations - including refineries - in Turkey and some was then moved on to a third country. Russia said it was producing only "part of the evidence" for now and did not provide direct proof of their claim that Mr Erdogan and family were involved.

Taken from Syria conflict: Russia accuses Erdogan of trading oil with IS - BBC News

If Russia provides evidence that Erdogan & family were involved directly then I'm sure it will be covered well by the media. There are quite a number of reasons why it might not reach that point though. We don't have the full brinkmanship picture for a start. eg I don't know if Russia wants to destroy Erdogan, or if they are pressing for something else behind the scenes.

 

[camouflage]

Well I don't have much time at the moment so I've only had a chance to see how the BBC reported it earlier.

The report is quite long. When it came to the Russian briefing, they reported it with the degree of cynicism and negative tone they often have reserved for Russia and a number of others.

eg:



Taken from Syria conflict: Russia accuses Erdogan of trading oil with IS - BBC News

If Russia provides evidence that Erdogan & family were involved directly then I'm sure it will be covered well by the media. There are quite a number of reasons why it might not reach that point though. We don't have the full brinkmanship picture for a start. eg I don't know if Russia wants to destroy Erdogan, or if they are pressing for something else behind the scenes.

Well they said in the breifing that they are not trying to get Erdogan to resign as that's for the Turkish people to decide. Their usual line really.

 

[DrRingDing]

Putin's got RT to big up the Kurds.

An all out assault by Russia today

 

[coley]

Putin's got RT to big up the Kurds.

An all out assault by Russia today

An obvious move, given the 'Wests' lukewarm support for them so far, if Putin gives them some serious support it will make Erdogan's life that much more difficult and also leave them in debt to Putin.

 

[teqniq]

@RussianEmbassy Putin: Allah has punished the rulers of Turkey by depriving them of reason. They will regret what they have done.