Blighted by a series of terrorist attacks that have taken hundreds of civilians lives and plunged the country into uncertainty over the past 12 months, Turkey’s security apparatus are coming under deep scrutiny.
Local media reported on Tuesday that the man suspected of shooting dead 39 people at an Istanbul nightclub was trained in Afghanistan; once in custody he confessed to carrying out the massacre. The suspect, 33-year-old Abdulkadir Masharipov, reportedly an Uzbek citizen, was detained in a district of west Istanbul on Monday night, appearing bruised and bloodied in photos released by police.
Yet it took 16 days for Turkish police and anti-terror squads to track down and apprehend Masharipov, during which the suspect evaded capture several times. How he, a known and skilled terrorist in the words of Turkish officials, managed to enter the country and move from city to city before the attack – and later escape – points to the multi-pronged security challenges facing Turkey in large part because of the war in Syria, but also as a result of a massive purge of security and intelligence forces that followed last summer's botched military coup.
Since 2012, militants and extremists have used the country as a transit point by which to enter and leave areas of northern Syria controlled by Isis and al-Qaeda-linked groups. Turkey said that by last March it deported 3,300 foreigners believed to be involved in terrorist activities, but claims it cannot act against suspected foreign extremists unless their home countries first alert Ankara to possible illegal activities.
Inadequate co-operation
This lack of adequate communication between Turkish and international anti-terrorist agencies was most comically illustrated when three suspected jihadists were deported from Istanbul to Marseille in September 2014. French police, however, had been awaiting the suspects at Orly airport, outside Paris. The three turned themselves in to a police station soon after landing. “It’s a complete mess but a large part of it is due to a lack of good co-operation with the Turkish authorities,” said France’s defence minister at the time.
Turkey also faces deadly threats from within. Home-grown Isis-linked extremists, also trained and radicalised across the border in Syria, have been responsible for the deadliest attack in Turkey’s history – the killing of 103 people at a peace rally in Ankara in 2015, and an attack on Kurdish activists in Suruc in July the same year that precipitated the return to open war between the state and Kurdish separatists that has since cost thousands of lives.
Facing such multifaceted security challenges has been complicated by the fact that no single geographic area or target type has come under attack. Tourist and Western-orientated hotspots of Istanbul have seen bloodshed, as well as military and security buildings and vehicles on the streets of Ankara, Istanbul and elsewhere. Kurdish wedding parties and gatherings have suffered massacres at the hands of Isis.
Likewise, there is no one operational area terrorist cells are working out of. Isis extremists are known by intelligence agencies to have worked from multiple sites in the southeastern city of Gaziantep, recruited in impoverished neighbourhoods of Adiyaman and Ankara, and stashed weapons, money and cell members in various districts of Istanbul, all while conducting attacks elsewhere.
Security measures
Despite this, security measures at major transportation hubs such as bus terminals, airports and metro lines – while nonetheless more pronounced than at their European equivalents – are often lax. X-ray machines at entrances to metro stations in Istanbul can regularly be seen unmanned, while the tight restrictions at the entrances to major airports appear to have been relaxed as they caused massive delays.
On top of this, the authorities have been occupied by the brutal purge following last July’s failed coup d’etat, which has seen tens of thousands of people arrested, detained or fired from their jobs. A total of 7,878 military officers and 21,384 police have been fired, according to Turkeypurge.com, a monitoring website. Turkey’s intelligence services have seen more than one hundred officers dismissed. Combined, the skills and experience necessary to upend terrorist cells and capture extremists, experts suggest, have been severely depleted because of the purge.
Rumours and suspicion that officials and police officers who continue to serve may have ties to Fethullah Gulen, the US-based cleric blamed by Turkey for the attempted coup, have increased levels of paranoia and led to some peculiar claims. “It appears the Reina attack was not just a terrorist organisation’s act, but there was also an intelligence organisation involved,” Turkey’s deputy prime minister Numan Kurtukmus said on Monday, without naming or indicating whether his claim referred to a Turkish, foreign or other agency.
Without doubt, Masharipov’s arrest will be viewed as both a success and a necessity in maintaining confidence in the country’s security and intelligence forces; a maelstrom of threats mean that many more chances to fail or succeed likely lie ahead.