Could assassination attempts be made against politicians?

Emre Uslu

Turkey has turned into a big mental hospital. It seems that almost all political actors have lost their minds and are acting without making rational judgments.

For a long time, it was obvious that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his close associates were acting based on conspiracy theories. I personally thought he was using conspiracy theories as a political tool to solidify his own constituency. However, the way the prime minister has been acting in recent weeks shows that he, too, actually believes in those conspiracy theories and is trying to counter them by taking extraordinary measures, even approving the staging of counter conspiracies.

I recently received a very significant tip that could pull Turkey into a dark era. There are various claims known amongst security officials that the public needs to know about.

The first claim is related to possible assassination attempts against politicians. As we all know, pro-government newspapers have been circulating news in recent months that there could possibly be assassination attempts against politicians -- including the mayor of Ankara, Melih Gökçek.

Mr. Gökçek himself came out and revealed the “plan” and said, “There could be an assassination attempt against me. If I die, I have left letters to my sons.” Well, it is not a normal political statement from the mayor of Turkey's capital city to make. If there is a real threat has been assessed he, instead of leaving letters to his sons, needs to go to a prosecutor and share whatever he knows about the plot.

Oddly enough, the pro-government Sabah daily claimed that intelligence agencies know that the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) terror organization will orchestrate the assassination. Moreover, the DHKP/C issued a statement stressing that Mr. Gökçek is not a target of their group.

When such allegations were spelled out by high-ranking politicians, Erdoğan came out and said the community of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen is made of “hashashin” -- a term for a shadow group from medieval times who carried out assassinations. Given the fact that Gülen is the foremost advocate of nonviolence and the only promoter of dialogue with different segments of society, including Jews and Christians, it was surprising for many political observers to see Gülen's movement being labeled as hashashins.

When I was investigating what all these assassination claims of Justice and Development Party (AKP) politicians were about, I discovered a dirty plan of the intelligence agencies. The security personnel who I contacted argued that there is currently no real assassination threat against any politicians. They said that Turkish intelligence agencies know all the moves of the terror organizations, including the DHKP/C. They said that even if there were to be an attack, it would be a “controlled” attack and no one would hurt. They even provided two shocking examples. They said a few month ago, the DHKP/C attacked the AKP's headquarter and the headquarters of the National Police Department. They used light anti-tank weapons (LAWs) and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). However, those weapons did not cause any harm to the building. They suspect that the weapons' capacity for destruction may have been reduced prior to the attack, but the DHKP/C militants used the weapons without knowing it.

My sources, however, believe that there could be a “fake, controlled assassination attempt” in the future that would make politicians look like heroes. While I was thinking that such conspiracy theories are crazy, I learned of one even worse than that.

One of my sources claimed that a relative of his in the police was offered training by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT). He says there are 20 police officers who, prior to becoming policemen, went to Gülen-affiliated prep schools and took exams. Those officers were trained by MİT and have now returned to doing undercover police work on the streets of İstanbul. According to my source, those police officers will be used for criminal activities, such as attacking people, and these acts will be associated with the Gülen movement to imply they are an armed organization.

When I mentioned these crazy conspiracy theory/plot to an objective political observer, he said, “Now I understand why Prime Minister Erdoğan is trying to associate the Gülen community with the hashashin.”

As I said at the beginning of this piece, Turkey has turned into a mental hospital. Even I lost myself in it, and am not sure what of the information I have learned is right or wrong. I wrote all that I heard, just so you can know it. Save this piece somewhere in your files and check if there will be a fake assassination attempt in the near future…

Published on Today's Zaman, 20 February 2014, Thursday