Turkey is facing a growing Islamic militancy, often involving the educated middle class, fuelled by the Iraq war, and often targeted on the country itself, writes Mary Fitzgerald
It is not easy to get to Bingol. Buses that connect the town with the nearest city take more than three hours to negotiate the narrow winding road that cuts through the steep gorges of this part of southeastern Anatolia.
Police and army checkpoints on the way are a reminder of the violence that convulsed the region more than a decade ago as Kurdish separatists battled Turkish forces. A string of muddy villages and isolated farms eventually leads to Bingol, a bleak hamlet of 70,000 mostly Kurdish inhabitants set deep in rugged, earthquake-prone mountains.
Three years after al-Qaeda struck Istanbul with a series of four suicide bombings that claimed more than 60 lives, the people of Bingol are still trying to come to terms with the fact that three of the bombers grew up on its impoverished streets. "Even today most people here can't believe that he died doing this," says Veysel Elaltuntas, whose brother, Gokhan, blew up a truckload of explosives outside one of Istanbul's oldest synagogues.
"But we believe it - we had to bury what bits remained of him."
Gokhan Elaltuntas (22) was quiet, personable and not particularly religious, his family say. He managed the Bingol Internet Merkezi Cafe on the town's main street but harboured dreams of becoming a teacher.
Elaltuntas's father co-owned the internet cafe with the brother of a man named Azad Ekinci. Ekinci is believed to have played a key role in planning the attacks, buying the trucks used by the bombers.
Elaltuntas and Ekinci had travelled to Istanbul with Mesut Cabuk (29), another friend from Bingol. The tattered remains of Cabuk's passport were found outside a second bombed synagogue.
Another accomplice drove the bomb that exploded outside the Istanbul headquarters of HCBC bank while yet another targeted the British consulate, killing several staff members including the consul-general. It later emerged that the bombers did not act alone - they merely provided the local manpower for a complex plot masterminded by Turks but conceived in Afghanistan.
Unravelling the strands of what has become known in Turkey as El Kaide Turka (Turkish al-Qaeda) would lead investigators all the way back to the pre-9/11 Afghan training camps. And Osama bin Laden.
"We always suspected that this plan was hatched not in Bingol or Turkey but somewhere else," says Veysel, who believes his brother was duped into carrying out the bombing. "Gokhan never talked about politics and he was no more Muslim than anybody else here. His friends were more fond of their religion but they didn't seem like radicals."
Cabuk, who had organised an unofficial Islamic circle that met for regular prayer meetings in the town, spent two years in Pakistan with Ekinci, who is also believed to have fought in Chechnya. No one knows for sure what the two friends did in Pakistan but when they returned to Bingol, they seemed different. They began wearing shalwar kameez, the loose trousers and tunic worn by Pakistani men, and they grew long beards. Befriending Elaltuntas, they spent most of their time in the internet cafe he managed.
No one suspected anything. Today most people in Bingol are keen to distance the town from the events of that November week three years ago. "Bingol's name has been connected with terror but that is not the reality," says the mayor, Haci Ketenalp. "People in this town may be conservative but they are not radical like that."
But others tell a different story, one that suggests Bingol is no stranger to Islamic militancy. Until the late 1990s, Turkish authorities had tacitly nurtured a violent religious outfit in troubled southeastern Anatolia. Known as Hizbullah, the Sunni organisation has no relation to the Shia group of the same name in Lebanon. In Bingol and other towns, men were recruited for what became a convenient state proxy in the dirty war against Kurdish guerrillas.
By 1998, the army was ordered to rein in Hizbullah, by then notorious for its brutality. Arrests and killings followed. Some members went to ground or fled abroad. "There are still men in this town and other places around here with the potential to fight," says one member of Hizbullah from Bingol who refused to give his name.
"Whether it is about joining a war or carrying out a bombing, that thinking is still there. It will always be there."
One of his friends died fighting in Bosnia, one of some dozen men from the town who heeded the call to join the Bosnian jihad. Others fought in Afghanistan. "If I didn't have my two children, I would have gone to Lebanon to help fight the Israelis this year. We Muslims must not keep silent," he adds.
Bingol is not an isolated case. Throughout the last two decades, hundreds of Turks have trained or fought in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and Pakistan before returning to their homeland, says Mehmet Farac, a journalist who has written extensively on Hizbullah and recently published a book on al-Qaeda in Turkey.
Farac works in the heavily guarded offices of Cumhuriyet, one of Turkey's leading secularist newspapers. Four of its journalists have been killed by Hizbullah and the building has been targeted three times by bombers.
"For Turkish jihadis, the Afghan training experience was where it all started," Farac says. A report released by Turkish Intelligence noted that one training camp in Afghanistan became known as the "Turks' Camp" because the number of Turkish fighters exceeded those of other nationalities.
The report listed the names of 107 Turkish nationals who received training in al-Qaeda camps before the Taliban were ousted but acknowledged there were hundreds others who remain unknown. The report also indicated that some of these Turks travelled to Iraq to join the insurgency following the US invasion in 2003.
Ibrahim (26) is from the southeastern city of Van. He fought in Chechnya after finishing high school and later travelled to Afghanistan where he battled US troops at Tora Bora in late 2001.
Arrested some time later in the border town of Peshawar, he spent two years in detention at Guantanamo Bay. "Before I left home I had convinced myself through reading the Koran, the hadiths and Muslim writers that Chechnya was a holy war and I had an obligation to join it," he told The Irish Times.
"What I saw in Chechnya made me realise that the gun and the Muslim are inseparable. It is our duty. I would not accept Islam if it didn't have jihad. Through jihad we give ourselves to God.
"I am a mujahed and I will fight jihad wherever it needs to be fought. God willing I will go to Iraq too, this is the next step. There are many Muslims going there because it is a good opportunity for us. We will fight 99 years, we are not afraid. Nothing can defeat us because this is the word of God."
Similar rhetoric marked the opening of one of the most closely watched cases ever to be heard in Istanbul's Central Criminal Court number 10.
During the hearing Harun Ilhan, one of the suspected ringleaders of the Istanbul bombing cell, admitted his involvement, boasting that he was an "al-Qaeda warrior." Though Osama bin Laden is mortal, he said, "jihad is eternal. Even if Osama dies, our jihad will continue. Al-Qaeda exists in all of the Islamic world for victory, and until this fight is finished with success it will continue."
Details that have emerged from the trial so far illustrate the role played by al-Qaeda in inspiring, sponsoring and developing the Turkish terrorist cell. A second defendant, Adnan Ersoz, told the court he had received military training during a trip to Afghanistan. He said Abu Hafs al-Masri, bin Laden's then lieutenant, had provided funds to bring Turks to Afghanistan for jihad.
Ersoz testified that in early 2001 he arranged a meeting between al-Masri and Habib Akdas, a Turkish jihadi and the alleged leader of the bomb plot.
Ersoz insisted that although the Turks had developed links with bin Laden's network, they could not be described as an al-Qaeda cell.
"Habib Akdas established a relationship of mutual support with al-Qaeda," he told the court. "Of course there are similarities in terms of their ideas. But it is wrong to call this al-Qaeda's Turkish structure."
According to Ersoz, he and Akdas later met bin Laden. The al-Qaeda leadership, Ersoz told the hearing, was interested in launching attacks on a number of targets including Incirlik, a Turkish airbase used by US forces. Another plan was to hit Israeli ships that docked at Turkey's southern port of Mersin.
Akdas, later killed while fighting with insurgents in Iraq, was tasked with researching the targets. The initial plans were shelved because Incirlik and the Israeli boats were judged to be too heavily guarded.
Instead, "softer" targets were selected, including the synagogues, HCBC bank and the British consulate.
Akdas told Ersoz he had received $150,000 from al-Qaeda associates outside Turkey to finance the attacks.
"Sheikh Osama made an agreement with Akdas and the other Turks. The initial order came straight from Sheikh Osama," explains Osman Karahan, a lawyer who represents several of those on trial in connection with the bombings. "But the change in targets was decided by the local commander."
Karahan says he represents almost 80 per cent of the Islamic militants facing charges in Turkey, including al-Qaeda associates and members of Ansar al- Islam, a jihadi group based in northern Iraq. He openly sympathises with his clients and has been questioned on suspicion of aiding and abetting al-Qaeda, accusations he denies.
Karahan is a Salafi, subscribing to the same austere interpretation of Islam popular with militants such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian insurgent leader killed in Iraq earlier this year. Salafis place much emphasis on the "purity" of their beliefs, rejecting all sects or practices apart from the most rigid Sunni Islam as "bida" or "innovation". They despise Shia Muslims as heretics and advocate "takfir", a word often translated as "excommunication", to deal with those who do not measure up to their idea of "pure" Islam.
A book titled Houris [ virgins] of Paradise: Eyes Like Fawns and Shining Skin is on sale in Karahan's office. In line with his beliefs, every image of a human face, including the portrait on his diploma, is covered with a small green Post-It. Female visitors are requested to sit behind a thick blind that hangs from the ceiling and he will only agree to an interview if I do the same. When asked if he has ever fought himself, he says he cannot answer that question.
Last year Karahan told judges at the Istanbul bombing trial that jihad was an obligation for Muslims and his clients should not be prosecuted. "If you punish them for this, will you punish them tomorrow for fasting or for praying?" the lawyer asked during a three-hour speech in which he quoted from religious texts. "If non-Muslims go into Muslim lands, it is every Muslim's obligation to fight them," he added.
One of Karahan's most high-profile clients is Louai Sakka, a Syrian al-Qaeda operative accused of financing the Istanbul bombings. Sakka has also been linked to major terrorist plots in Jordan and Iraq, where he says he fought with al-Zarqawi.
The indictment against him charges that he "proposed" the Istanbul attacks and provided funding, with the largest payment handed over in a sock filled with euros sent from Saudi sympathisers.
According to testimony heard in court, Sakka cheered as he watched TV reports of the bombings. The Syrian initially admitted his role in the blasts, but later withdrew the confession. He has, however, admitted that after he left Iraq he attempted to manufacture a bomb to be used in a planned attack on Israeli cruise boats in the Mediterranean.
The Istanbul bombing trial is due to reconvene on November 14th, one day before the third anniversary of the synagogue blasts. While the proceedings are expected to result in a number of life sentences, Mehmet Farac believes al-Qaeda's support in Turkey has not been completely routed: "They are weaker now but they still have the ability to strike using sleeper cells that can be activated at any time."
He says the number of Islamic militants in Turkey runs into thousands, some 500 of whom are known to the authorities. A number of these are remnants of Hizbullah or members of another, more marginal group, the Islamic Great Eastern Raiders Front, known as IBDA-C, which advocates an Islamic government for Turkey.
The group has carried out a number of small-scale attacks on secular targets over the last decade and falsely claimed responsibility for the Istanbul bombings in an attempt to gain publicity. It publishes a newspaper called Kaide - Turkish for al-Qaeda - which is regularly seized by police on publication. A copy obtained by The Irish Times contains an article praising female suicide bombers and numerous tributes to Osama bin Laden and Iraqi insurgents.
Of greater concern, Farac believes, are the those who sympathise with al-Qaeda and subscribe to Salafi ideology. They pose a challenge very different to that of Hizbullah or IBDA-C. "The bulk of Hizbullah were uneducated men, some of whom had already dabbled in crime. It was an unsophisticated group largely confined to one part of Turkey," he explains.
"These Salafis are young, middle class, often university educated and found in cities across the country. Their outlook is global whereas Hizbullah's was regional. The ideology they adhere to can easily turn into action and that is the problem, particularly when you look at Turkey's very dangerous geographical location. In many ways, it could serve as a pathway of terror."
Osman Karahan claims the Iraq war has proved a galvanising force for young Turkish Muslims already attracted to Salafi ideas. "A few years ago Salafi ideology was just like a new-born baby in Turkey," he says.
"Now that baby is growing up. The jihad in Iraq is different to that against the Soviets in Afghanistan because it is a Salafi jihad, a pure jihad that resembles most closely the idea of jihad in the Prophet's time."
The internet cafe in Bingol where Gokhan Elaltuntas and his friends planned their "martyrdom" is now a jeans shop. Not much else has changed in this grim town where three generations of unemployed men mull over backgammon boards in crowded teahouses. Many of the streets that lead off the main road are little more than rutted mud tracks.
Outside one mosque, some locals have set up a small stall to solicit donations for Palestinian refugees. One of those manning the table is a Hizbullah member recently released from prison.
Few in the town bother to keep up with the latest on the bombing trial in Istanbul, preferring to try instead to forget the tragedy that catapulted Bingol to international attention. But they cannot help wondering what happened to the three young men who used to pray in a basement mosque opposite the internet cafe and why.
Some ask if it was something to do with the town itself and the despair of unemployment that marks so many lives here. Others wonder if the problem is bigger than Bingol, bigger than Turkey even.
"If it can happen to Gokhan, it can happen to anyone," says Veysel Elaltuntas. "If we had just a small sign that he was going in such a way, we would have kept him away from these people. When he left for Istanbul we never suspected he was lost to us already."
maryfitzgerald@irish-times.ie
Mary Fitzgerald is the first winner of the Douglas Gageby journalist fellowship. Her reports on "The Faces of Islam" appear in Friday's Irish Times.