The Caliphate Next Door: Turkey Faces Up to its Islamic State Problem

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-jihadist-activity-in-northern-syria-forces-turkey-hand-a-994392.html



For years, Ankara has been tolerating the rise of the extremist Islamic State. But now that the jihadists are conquering regions just across the border in northern Syria, concern is growing that Islamist terror could threaten Turkey too.

The Caliphate Next Door: Turkey Faces Up to its Islamic State Problem
By Katrin Elger, Hasnain Kazim, Christoph Reuter and Holger Stark
September 29, 2014 – 06:11 PM



Islim Ali is dragging a torn trash bag behind her, clothes spilling out of the growing holes. Twenty-two years old and in her sixth month of pregnancy, she heaves the sack into her arms and crosses the border, followed by her husband, himself overloaded with possessions, and their two daughters, Esma, 6, and Rodin, 2. A Turkish disaster management agent notes down the Kurdish family's personal details and they then sit down on the ground behind the metal barricade. A gust of wind kicks up a cloud of dust, covering everything with a fine layer. But the Alis don't seem to care. They are in Turkey -- in safety.

The family had spent five days on the Syrian side of the border before crossing into Turkey, having left their hometown of Kobani, called Ain al-Arab in Arabic, once the Islamist fighters from Islamic State went on the attack. The terrorists advanced closer and closer to the city and the Alis could hear the shelling. They quickly packed clothing into sacks and left behind their coffee shop, their apartment and their car -- they could only cross the border on foot.

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In normal times, Suruç is a town of 60,000 people, but nobody knows how many are living there now. Refugee families have set up camp wherever they can find a bit of space: in the park in front of the cultural center, hundreds of people are sleeping on blankets. Most of the refugees want to return home as quickly as they can, but it could be a while yet. Some 160,000 Syrians have fled Islamic State fighters across the northern border in recent weeks, with a total of 1.5 million refugees from the war already in Turkey.

The fight for Kobani represents a turning point for Turkey. Islamic State fighters were just 300 meters from the border near Suruç last week. Should the group successfully establish control over the region, the caliphate could become Turkey's new neighbor. It is a horror scenario for Europe, but most of all for Turkey -- and yet the general public there seems largely unaware of it. Newspapers in the country are writing plenty about the humanitarian catastrophe taking place on its southern border and about the US air strikes against Islamic State, but the threat of a possible Islamist attack on Turkey goes largely ignored.