Urban Attacks Planned in Southeastern Turkey
Police took security measures in the Hakkari neighborhood where a police officer was killed in an armed attack by an unknown assailant while shopping in the city center.
The terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party which recently increased its number of violent attacks against Turkish gendarmerie units, devised a massive plan to stage dozens of attacks on both military outposts and civilian areas starting July 29, according to a plan exposed by Turkish intelligence units. Details of the report from intelligence sources were published in the Bugün daily on Thursday. Intelligence sources say the terrorist organization had devised its strategy of large-scale violence to sabotage Turkey’s attempts at drafting a new and more democratic constitution, which will resume once Parliament reconvenes on Oct. 1.
The steps in the plan included attacks on arenas and stadiums hosting celebrations for Aug. 30, Victory Day, celebrations and arming the residents of the Southeast to turn the autonomy status of the region declared unilaterally by the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) into reality. Intelligence units also say the terrorist group was planning to stage another attack on the Dağlıca military outpost, where 12 soldiers were killed in an attack in 2007. Bugün said the information about the scheme came from state intelligence units but did not specify which ones. According to this, intelligence officers are now aware that the PKK has already started arming area residents in the Kurdish-dominated regions.
They also note Fehman Hüseyin, a PKK leader of Syrian origin, was put back in charge of the region and that he has ordered attacks that will generate wide attention and concern.
According to Turkish intelligence, Hüseyin ordered his men to stage attacks that will be “low in risk but high in repercussions.” The PKK will seek to find vulnerabilities and weaknesses of security forces and target those flawed areas in its attacks after July 29. The main purpose of the PKK will be to try and pull security forces into open terrain in the Southeast where they can be easily ambushed.
Intelligence reports also say that the recent killing of two officers in Çukurca and two others in Yüksekova –- both men were shot in the back in civilian clothing –- and remote-controlled landmines that have been exploding frequently in recent months are the initial parts of the PKK’s new bloody attack plan.
Most of the attacks in which members of security forces were killed in district or province centers were carried out with guns with silencers and usually as the victims left their homes.
Intelligence reports say that the PKK has supplied many guns and a large amount of ammunition to the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), an affiliated terrorist group that is more active in urban centers.
Hüseyin has pointed to Hakkâri, Van, Muş, Bingöl, Diyarbakır and İstanbul as the group’s prime targets for attacks. He has ordered attacks on public officials, their families, official vehicles and buildings. He individually named some state officials who should be targeted, including the kaymakam (district governor) of Karlıova. He openly issued threats to the kaymakam in a recent speech to his fellow terrorists and said he should be killed.
The PKK normally slows its violent attacks during Ramadan, a month holy to Muslims, out of fear of offending the religious sentiment held by the people of the Southeast and the East. But the PKK made clear that its bloody plan will continue throughout Ramadan.
The bloodiest plan is to stage violent attacks in stadiums and arenas where military groups, government officials, students and ordinary citizens will flock during Victory Day celebrations. In metropolitan cities and in the west, the PKK will rely on suicide bombs. In the east, it plans to stage attacks on gendarmerie border outposts that will shock the nation by killing as many Turkish soldiers as possible.
The PKK, which kidnapped two soldiers and a public health worker last month, plans to take more military and civilian hostages in the period ahead, according to intelligence reports.
Security has been stepped up, but the PKK’s plan also comes at a time when Turkey recently announced plans to change its strategy in fighting terrorists.
Following a PKK attack that killed 13 soldiers in Silvan in July, the government announced late that month that it would be taking a new approach to combat terrorism. Preventing new recruits from joining the PKK and making sure that those who flee the organization are successfully reintegrated into society will be two crucial points Turkey will concentrate on in its fight against terrorism from now on.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the government will rely on the police force extensively in counterterrorism efforts, with other government officials explaining that this won’t mean that the military will be out of the picture entirely.
11 August 2011
SOURCE: TODAY’S ZAMAN
