Turkish bombings linked to Banias suspect

Mihraç Ural in Syria

The man I called five days ago “the ethnic cleanser of Banias” is emerging as the suspected mastermind of Saturday’s twin bombings in the Turkish town of Reyhanli, a main hub for Syrian refugees and opposition activity in Turkey's Hatay province, just across the border with Syria.

“A fugitive Turkish Alevi with Syrian citizenship and a checkered past has emerged as the chief instigator and overseer of last week’s massacres in Bayda and Banias. A native of Hatay Province in southern Turkey, his real name is Mihraç Ural,” I wrote in my May 8 post, “Syria: Enter the ethnic cleanser of Banias.”

Turkish authorities are holding nine Turkish citizens believed to have links to Syrian intelligence in connection with the two car bombs in Reyhanli that left 46 people dead and 100 injured.

Today, Turkish political analyst Murat Yetkin essentially writes about Ural’s role in his column for Hurriyet English-language daily:

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said during a live TV show yesterday, “Those who committed the Banias massacre are also responsible for these (Reyhanli) attacks.”

He was talking about a Syrian army operation supported by “المقاومة السورية” -- the “Syrian Resistance” -- against the Sunni population of the historical coastal town of Banias, killing hundreds of civilians, including children.

Davutoglu had denounced the operation as an “ethnic cleansing” campaign against Sunnis by Assad, as a contingency plan to set up a rump Alawite state…

The point is there was somebody, technically still a Turkish citizen, Mihraç Ural, who was shown as the responsible party… There are videos of him available on YouTube as he speaks in Arabic and tries to incite militiamen around him to cleanse Banias of Sunnis as soon as possible.

The name is not alien to Turkish security circles.

Ural was among the founders of an armed leftist group dubbed “Acilciler” – the “hasty ones” – in the late 1970s and is responsible of a number of political murders, bank robberies and similar acts of terror.

The group had been denounced by other leftists as a tool of Syrian intelligence, and even mocked as the “Hatay liberation army” since some of its members were from Hatay and of Nusayri (Alawite) origin…

Ural’s name and organization were mentioned by Turkish security and media right after a similar car bomb attack at Cilvegözü border gate with Syria on Feb. 11, killing 13 people...

In Syria, where he commands “المقاومة السورية” (the “Syrian Resistance”) militia, a shabiha subdivision, Mihraç Ural goes by his Arabic nom de guerre: Ali at-Kayyali.

Ural left Turkey for Syria after the 12 September 1980 Turkish coup d'état, headed by Gen. Kenan Evren.

He is said to have introduced PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to Hafez Assad, Bashar’s father, in Damascus.

In his leader comment this morning, Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, also alludes to the Reyhanli-Banias connection.

Writing in Arabic about what he describes as “post-honeymoon bitterness,” Charbel says:

It is not child’s play for Ankara officials to say perpetrators of the deadly bombings in Reyhanli are Turkish citizens associated with Syrian intelligence.

It is not child’s play either to say some of the suspects were involved in the latest Banias massacre.

True, the fallout between the two countries is not new. Equally true, the wrangle has now acquired grave dimensions.

When a government accuses a neighboring state of being behind bombings on its territory, it commits itself to a response.

The response could have been a classical recourse to the UN Security Council, but Ankara is aware that Council’s door is firmly locked and strictly guarded by Russia.

Ankara is thus expected to seek a response surpassing a salvo of cross-border shells or a reminder underscoring its NATO credentials.

Recent months were replete with signs of the mushrooming estrangement between Ankara and Damascus.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not tired of asking Assad to step down. He has used tough words to describe his former friend. Ankara did not suffice with hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. It went further and assumed the mantle of the safe haven and stronghold of Assad’s enemies, including the Free Syrian Army.

Assad did not grin and bear his former friend either. He hosted Turkish opposition leaders and held Erdogan fully responsible for the rot. He addressed the Turkish public via the Turkish media to increase the pressure on Erdogan, denying him the chance to do the same. Syria’s state-run media unearthed old wordbooks to warn of the Ottomans getting astride Muslim Brotherhood horses to ride back and revive the caliphate. Syrian state media also revitalized the Iskenderun (Alexandretta) file, which has been dormant for decades.

The Reyhanli bombings’ timing elicited much scrutiny and a series of scripts.

The outrage came a few days after the U.S.-Russian agreement to hold an international conference for a political solution in Syria based on the June 2012 Geneva Declaration.

It also came after fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) started withdrawing from Turkey in keeping with the Erdogan-Ocalan agreement.

Incidentally, Erdogan’s deal with Abdullah Ocalan was a game-changer for Syria’s Kurds, turning them from a card up Damascus’ sleeve into an ace of trumps in Ankara’s hand.

The Reyhanli bombings also came in the week of Erdogan’s talks with President Barack Obama at the White House next Thursday.

Turkey-watchers believe the Reyhanli bombings will spur Erdogan to urge Obama to stop fudging and dithering and be more decisive on Syria. They believe Erdogan “considers Assad’s lingering in any part of Syria would seriously undermine Turkey’s stability and territorial integrity. And Ankara is prepared to bear the burden of safeguarding its stability and engaging further in the battle to remove Assad.”

The Turkish-Syrian honeymoon was drawn out.

Turkey hoped an “exemplary rapport” with Syria was its gateway to the Arab world and key to building bridges to the region.

Syria too was elated to reach out to a Sunni member of NATO. Damascus felt relations with Turkey compensated for its tiff with Saudi Arabia and Egypt and imagined Ankara becoming both its passageway and password.

The post-honeymoon bitterness followed.

Syria accuses Turkey of spewing out arms and rebels. Ankara accuses Damascus of trying to destabilize Turkey and undermine the unity of its social fabric. Ankara yearns for Syria without Assad while Assad dreams of Turkey without Erdogan. The Syrian information minister did not omit calling on Erdogan lately to step down.

But the game is more intricate.

Russia insists it is the door and latchkey to a solution. Iran does not lack the appetite to assume such a role despite its deep involvement.

Solving the Syria crisis is so difficult. The door is stuck shut and the small key is lost.

Erdogan will surely ask Obama to open the door and find the key, arguing that the once widespread treatment of wounds by cauterization is long overdue.

Syria: Enter the ethnic cleanser of Banias

Closeups of Mihraç Ural aka Ali at-Kayyali and a file photo of him with Abullah Ocalan

A fugitive Turkish Alevi with Syrian citizenship and a checkered past has emerged as the chief instigator and overseer of last week’s massacres in Bayda and Banias.

A native of Hatay Province in southern Turkey, his real name is Mihraç Ural.

In Syria, where he commands the “National Resistance” militia, a shabiha subdivision, Mihraç Ural goes by his Arabic nom de guerre: Ali at-Kayyali.

On the day that Mihraç Ural aka Ali at-Kayyali made the headlines for saying in a leaked video, “We need to cleanse Banias of traitors at the earliest,” a Syrian Sunni Muslim survivor gave on air his grisly nine-minute eyewitness account of last week’s massacre in the coastal city.

Details of the human carnage in western Syria over the weekend, in which pro-regime militias slaughtered hundreds of Sunni residents, most of them women and children, point to a deliberate act of sectarian cleansing in the Alawites' heartland.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said possibly as many as 100 Sunnis were killed Thursday in Bayda, a village outside the city of Banias.

It cited witnesses who said some of the dead were killed with knives or blunt objects and that dozens of villagers were still missing.

Pro-regime militiamen stormed the Sunni neighborhood of Ras el-Nabeh the following day, Friday (May 3), killing hundreds more.

Ural aka Kayyali is believed to have commanded the militiamen.

Sitting next to an Alawite religious leader and speaking to supporters with impeccable Syrian accent shortly before the outrage, he says on video:

“Banias? The only exit route for those traitors is the (Mediterranean) sea. We are Banias!

“In any case, Jableh (a nearby coastal city) is under nationalist forces control. It cannot possibly be a base or pathway for our foes.

“Sooner or later, we’re supposed to lay siege to Banias. I mean what I say: cordon off Banias and start the ethnic cleansing.

“Our mission is to liberate, cleanse and hold our ground until (regular army) troops take over.”

Ural left Turkey for Syria after the 12 September 1980 Turkish coup d'état, headed by Gen. Kenan Evren.

He is said to have introduced PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to Hafez Assad, Bashar’s father, in Damascus.

A photograph showing him with Ocalan is still posted on Ural’s Facebook page.

Ural has previously recorded videos in staunch support of the Syrian regime, including one uploaded in January in which he threatens “traitors” against “descending on Latakia and the coast,” in reference to rebels fighting against regime troops in the chiefly Alawite areas of western Syria.

Having led the Turkish Peoples Liberation Party/Front (THKP/C) and its deadly splinter faction called the Hasty Ones (Acilciler), a leftist group established in the 1970s, Ural is also remembered in Turkey as the instigator of an anti-government march in Hatay last September.

Hatay has a population of 500,000 Alevis.

Eyewitness account

Top, Banias eyewitness and Alarabiya's Nadine Khammash 

Alarabiya anchorwoman Nadine Khammash interviewed on air the Syrian Sunni Muslim survivor who gave a grisly nine-minute eyewitness account of the massacre in Banias.

To protect his identity, Ms Khammash introduced him in yesterday’s Evening News as “Abu Muhammad.” And he answered her questions from a darkened room in Lebanon.

Here is the gist of what he said:

(In the days leading up to the massacre) there was nothing untowardly going on (in Banias). People were moving around easily and without worry.

Yes, there were checkpoints but no one was being stopped.

Checkpoints did not proliferate until Wednesday (May 1), when people were ordered to cease their goings and comings.

Everything stopped coming in… no bread anymore, no this and no that.

People started getting anxious. They felt uneasy.

On Thursday, they headed to the bridge, close to the checkpoint. They were about 500-600 men and women.

The soldiers manning the checkpoints ordered them home, telling them they were animals.

Dusk was falling rapidly and people headed home perturbed. Some wanted to sleep outdoors.

Streets remained almost deserted on Friday morning. A salvo of gunfire in the air met anyone who dared get anywhere near a checkpoint.

Shelling of Banias started at about 3-3:30 p.m. – mortars and tank shells from al-Awz Bridge, al-Qosoor neighborhood and Ras al-Nabeh bridge.

We then saw them (militiamen) move in from al-Awz under gunfire cover provided by the army.

They were about 150 men.

They forced their way into the first house, herded everyone out, lined them up against the wall and shot them dead.

They knifed to death four or five people in the next house.

My immediate family having left Syria, I started running to save my skin.

I found a tiny aperture, where I stood motionless for one-and-a-half hours.

They were forcing people out of their homes, lining them up against a wall and shooting them.

They shot or knifed to death 35 of my relatives, one of them a two-week-old baby and eight children less than three years of age.

I heard one of them ordering, “Kill them all, kill them all. Have no mercy.”

Another was saying, “Look this one is still alive. Aim at the head.”

I am Syrian. Sometimes I could not figure what they were saying.

Some were wearing battle fatigues, others not. The footwear of some was white.

After they left, I saw they had torched the limbs of two dead children.

They killed 16 members of the Rajab family.

Of the Jalloul family, they killed Abul-Abd, his two sons, his six daughters, his father – who was wheelchair-bound – his mother and his two brothers.

All members of the Dandash household were burned in their home.

Other victims come from the Sabbal, Al’ini and al-Turk families…

All the houses in Ras al-Nabeh (a neighborhood in Banias) are no more…

Barzani and the Middle East’s new Kurdish player

Inset is Massoud Barzani, president of Iraqi Kurdistan

My paraphrasing of today's leader comment penned in Arabic by Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of al-Hayat:

A new player has entered the terrible Middle East field, where regimes, governments, maps and minorities are either crumbling or shaking like a leaf.

That’s the Kurdish player.

In the last century, Kurds were roughed up in the game of nations, which dispersed them, independently of their will, as minorities in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Geography sentenced this people without the right to appeal, and history endorsed the ruling.

Today, we’re talking of nearly 25 million Kurds.

A decade ago many believed Kurds were destined to simply pass on story lines about their sufferings in rugged mountains and about scenes of Halabja and the Anfal Campaign.

Many also believed Kurds would forcibly swallow unjust Turkization and Arabization drives.

Denial of Kurdish rights was a fixed but tacit government policy clause in all four countries despite their claims to the contrary.

Suddenly, the crazy American adventure of invading Iraq brought this dirty game to a close.

The invasion would not have taken place had the Kurdish-Shiite alliance not made a pitch for toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime by any means and in whatever way possible.

That’s how the Shiites pocketed Baghdad and the Kurds bagged Iraqi Kurdistan under the federal constitutional republic of Iraq.

The Kurds have now had a decade of stability for the first time in their blood-soaked history.

They’re living under their own flag, though they’ve not ditched Iraq’s.

They teach their children in their native tongue and sing their ballads in their squares. They are building roads and setting up universities. They are also attracting investors and tourists.

The past decade was full of scenes as well.

Massoud Mustafa Barzani is the elected president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, managing it with the competence of a statesman after having led the Peshmerga with the astuteness of a freedom fighter-cum-politician.

Jalal Talabani sits in Saddam Hussein’s office as the president of Iraq.

Hoshyar Zebari shepherds Iraqi diplomacy, trying to uphold the interests of Iraq while walking a tightrope between America’s shadow and Iran’s clout.

Another scene is no less important.

The plane of someone named Recep Tayyip Erdogan landed in Erbil to open its international airport.

In a historic message, the visitor said the day when Kurdish rights were ignored is gone forever. Barzani struggled to conceal his delight, choosing instead to build on the phrase.

I asked Massoud Barzani about Erdogan’s Turkey and the Kurds of Abdullah Ocalan being on the same page now.

He acknowledged in his answer that he encouraged the two sides to bury the hatchet and seek a political solution.

He said success of the Turkey-PKK deal would be “a historic event inducing a sea change in the region.”

He said the two sides showed a sense of realism by kicking off implementation of the agreement to end a conflict that drained Kurds and Turks correspondingly.

I also asked Barzani if stability and prosperity in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region could incite Kurds in neighboring countries to use it as a template.

He replied: There is absolutely no need to clone the Kurdistan Region’s experience. There are circumstances, particularities, power balances and equilibriums. Chronic injustice should not stir up rashness.

“We’re not seeking to tear up maps and redraw borders. We don’t want clashes. We want to live in peace with the Turks, Arabs and Persians. We want to be a stability-and-prosperity factor.

“Surely, however, the times of usurped rights, exclusion and marginalization are defunct. Non-recognition of the ‘Other’ is a destructive culture.”

Barzani felt aggrieved by the mass killings and horrendous destruction in Syria, “which is on our doorstep.” He feared a prolonged split that would create an environment for extremists.

He precluded any role by Iraqi Kurdistan in arming Syria’s Kurds. He also hoped democracy and respect of all constituents would prevail in neighborly Syria.

Barzani refused to “personalize” his current dispute with Nouri al-Maliki, recognizing at the same time that links with Baghdad’s prevailing course of action were “nearing the point of no return.”

He stressed (Iraq’s) Kurds are not asking for more than a respect of the constitution and agreements signed, indicating at the same time that Baghdad’s course of action provoked a deep crisis with Iraq’s Arab Sunni component as well.

Turkey chose a new approach to deal with its Kurds.  Once the guns fall silent in Syria, its Kurdish component will be seated at the reconciliation table. Watching and waiting for their appointment will be Iran’s Kurds.

The triumph of Iraqi Kurdistan has helped change the way the ball bounces.

I asked Barzani, “What do the children of Peshmerga fighters yearn for?”

He grinned and replied, “They want computers, technologies, universities, job opportunities and hospitals. But, in this intricate Middle East, you have to remain on your guard. You must be prepared for war to ward it off.”

I asked, “Why do Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Nouri al-Maliki, Bashar al-Assad and Recep Tayyip Erdogan seemingly lack an esprit de corps?”

Barzani smiled again, saying only, “We want to turn borders into prospects to cooperate, not clash. We have to bank on human dignity, the economy and education. There’s no turning back.”

Upping the ante: Turkey, Syria and the PKK

Erdogan and Barzani (file photo from zaman.com)

Turkey is grappling with Kurdish troubles spearheaded by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) both on its volatile 900-kilometer-long border with Syria and at home.

The PKK, which has been fighting for autonomy in Turkey’s chiefly Kurdish southeast region since 1984 and was banned by Damascus from operating within Syria's borders since the late 1990s, has lately been recruited by Syria’s embattled regime,

• to maintain a lid on unrest in Syrian-Kurdish areas or northeast Syria and preempt Syrian Kurds there from joining the Syrian opposition, and
• to hassle Turkey and act as a buffer force should Ankara decide to intervene, or carve a buffer zone, in Syria.

Turkish intelligence reports say up to 2,000 PKK militiamen -- many of them previously trained in Kandil, a major PKK camp in northern Iraq -- are already deployed in Syrian Kurdish areas near the borders with Turkey.

PKK acting leader Murat Karayilan this week told the Europe-based Firat News Agency, which is close to the PKK, that Turkey was preparing the groundwork for an intrusion in Syria. "The Turkish state is planning an intervention against our people," he said. "Let me state clearly: if the Turkish state intervenes against our people in western Kurdistan, all of Kurdistan will turn into a war zone."

Turkey, for its part, has responded by:

• Daring Syria. President Abdullah Gül warned Damascus not to play the PKK games. He told Britain’s Financial Times in an interview last November: “I would strongly suggest and expect that they will not get into such a dangerous game. Even though I do not think they would do that, we are still closely following the matter.”
• Doubling the size of its security forces along the border with Syria.
• Urging the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) to co-opt Syria’s Kurdish groups, offering them a clear vision for the post-Assad era.
• Enlisting the help of Massoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, in countering the threat of a Syria-PKK alliance.

At the same time, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government is said to have formulated a new Kurdish strategy.

Mohammad Noureddine, perhaps the most authoritative writer on Turkish affairs in the Arab press, today lists nine of the strategy items in a think piece for the Baghdad daily al-Sabah.

Under the new strategy, he reports, Ankara would:

1. Use no channel outside civil politics in trying to solve the Kurdish problem.
2. Exclude as interlocutors both Abdullah Öcalan, who is serving life on Imrali Island, in the Sea of Marmara, and PKK leaders based in Europe or Qandil Mountain.
3. Help Kurdish citizens in the southeast withstand pressure from the PKK and its purported urban wing known as the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK).
4. Address the Kurdish people directly, without intermediaries.
5. Seek solutions within the halls of the Turkish parliament. Talks would only be with duly elected Kurdish legislators.
6. Sustain military operations against the PKK.
7. Rule out any negotiations with the PKK before it disarms and hands its weapons to the government.
8. Exclude from the new constitution any reference to a Kurdish identity or autonomy arrangement. The new constitution would simply uphold human rights and citizens’ equality before the law.
9. Empower local authorities, with the proviso that governance will be based on state laws.

Noureddine -- a Turkey watcher for the past 30 years – concludes with a somber remark saying, “I don’t think this differs from what previous governments have been saying since the 1980 coup. In fact, this is a new coup against the spirit of reform embraced by the Justice and Development Party portending a black cloud in Turkish-Kurdish relations.”

Turkey frets about Syria’s PKK game

Ocalan portrait at pro-Assad rally outside Syria's Beirut embassy (Photo from firstpost.com) 

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says Ankara won’t allow Syria to use the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) against his country.

“Turkish security forces are monitoring a number of PKK groups entering Turkey from Syria. Turkey would not allow any country to undermine its security,” Davutoglu said on his way to Nakhchivan City, capital of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan, after talks with his Dutch counterpart, Uri Rosenthal, in Rotterdam on Wednesday.

A think piece by Oytun Orhan, published last month in the Turkish daily Today's Zaman, says the first signal of cooperation between Syria and the PKK emerged from a recent news analysis by Firat News Agency, which is close to the PKK. The analysis said Turkey's ill-advised policies led Syria and Iran to give anti-Turkish forces "freedom of movement" against Ankara.

When Syrian-Kurd hero and opposition figure Meshaal Tammo was assassinated in Qamihsli last October 7, Firat News Agency described him as "a Kurdish member of the Syrian National Council (SNC) formed in Istanbul and supported by the Western powers and Turkey.”

The PKK's sidekick in Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), always refers to Syrian-Kurd representatives in the SNC as "collaborators."

PYD leader Saleh Muhammad was meantime allowed back to Syria from exile and co-opted to become deputy chairman of the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, which supports reform in Syria but does not advocate dismantlement of the Syrian dictatorship and the removal of Bashar al-Assad as president.

Another signal of the Syria-PKK rapprochement came from the Lebanese capital within weeks of Tammo's assassination. PKK flags and posters of Abdullah Ocalan were unfurled during a pro-Assad demonstration organized in front of the Syrian embassy in Beirut on October 31.

In November, Syria allowed the PKK to set up a camp for 150 of its men a short distance away from Sanliurfa in southeast Turkey. The commander of the new PKK camp is believed to be Fehman Huseyin of Syria, who goes by the codename Bahoz Erdal and masterminded PKK attacks in Turkey, including the Çukurca outrage last October, when 26 Turkish soldiers were killed.