Ankara attack

Even though no one has yet claimed responsibility for the car bombing in Ankara that killed at least 35 people, the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already responded by bombing bases of the Kurdish separatist group PKK in Northern Iraq. The variety of Kurdish groups fighting the Turkish government could certainly have carried out the attack in a crowded area of the capital since the last bombing in Ankara – three weeks ago on a military convoy but responsibility was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons. While that attack specifically went after military targets, this bombing was meant to kill as many civilians as possible. As such it smacks of the handiwork of Islamic State – which had in October last year carried out a suicide bombing at a peace rally in Ankara that killed more than 100 people – or its affiliated militant groups. It would be premature to assign blame this quickly just as it was premature for Erdogan to react by carrying out military strikes in Iraq and clamping down on dissent at home. Immediately after the bombings, Erdogan had all social media shut down. While he defended it as a necessary security precaution, since it comes just days after the government forcibly took over a critical newspaper, there is reason to believe he is trying to shut down criticism of his increasingly autocratic government.

Turkey has become a hub of international terrorism ever since it involved itself in Syria’s civil war. Its decades-long fight against domestic Kurdish separatists prompted the country to fight Kurdish rebels in Syria too and it has credibly been accused of, at the very least, turning a blind eye to the Islamic State. When Russia started backing Assad’s regime in Syria with airstrikes that only created further problems for Erdogan. The downing of a Russian attack aircraft by Turkey in November led to the imposition of economic sanctions and now Russia has accused Turkey of attacking Kurdish forces in Syria and breaking the tentative ceasefire that it negotiated with the US and other world powers. Erdogan has gained power and prestige around the Islamic world by presenting himself as the foremost defender of the faith but that has meant involving Turkey in disputes it would do better to stay away from. The violence that has now come to Turkey’s shores is the blowback of Erdogan’s ambitions.