Ankara bombing

Well, I was quite suspicious when I heard about this. The PKK have engaged in suicide bombings previously, mostly by women, but I thought this stopped at the end of the 90s.

So certainly Turkey would be happy to use it as an excuse to bomb Kurdish positions.

However, Turkish security forces say that they have identified one of the bombers as a PKK member: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/ankara-bombing-turkey-launches-revenge-air-strikes-against-kurds-a6929841.html

So not really sure what to believe

Well it seems they did this bombing. Mustafa Karasu is talking about how it was aimed at the police.

http://odatv.com/mob_n2.php?n=pkkdan-ankara-saldirisiyla-ilgili-ilk-ses-cikti-1503161200

Devrim

There has been a lot of support for their Syrian affiliate, PYD/YPG.

Devrim

Over a decade ago when I was living in Norway, the PKK had quite strong support among leftists. Don't know if things have changed, though I doubt it.

elraval2

Thanks for the replies.

Does PKK have much support in Western leftist circles?

I'd say within the general Leninist left most people did and still would broadly support them (although not necessarily actively). Amongst anarchists, five years ago or more I would have said that they didn't have much support, but with the fight against Isis, the winding down of the anti-civilian terrorist campaigns in Turkey and Ocalan's nominal "conversion" Bookchin-style federal municipalism they are now getting lots of support from anarchists as well.

If they have gone back to suicide bombing, hopefully some people will start to reconsider this…

If they have gone back to suicide bombing, hopefully some people will start to reconsider this…

You'd think, and I do also hope that, but many lefties are really good at coming up with excuses...

Steven.

If they have gone back to suicide bombing, hopefully some people will start to reconsider this…

Is the problem that it's a suicide bombing, or that it was bombing working class civilians?

Devrim

Both I'd say. Suicide bombings are the tactics of organizations that are inherently hierarchical and care little about individual life. They are warning signs about what sort of society the group that orders them would create if they were successful.

I'm going to have to look a bit more closely at the news reports. From my understanding the target was police officers. I might be wrong. That's routine military 'tactics' however much I might think it is foolish. Were there 'civilian casualties' ? Once more I'd have to look. The previous Ankara bombing did indeed produce so-called 'collateral damage'. That certainly decreases the moral standing of the organization organizing such things and is counter-productive in the end.

The victims were overwhelmingly civilians.

Devrim

Devrim

Steven.

If they have gone back to suicide bombing, hopefully some people will start to reconsider this…

Is the problem that it's a suicide bombing, or that it was bombing working class civilians?

Devrim

Well, both. Primarily targeting civilians, but also it is completely fucked up for an organisation leadership to brainwash its mostly working class members to kill themselves.
Khawaga

If they have gone back to suicide bombing, hopefully some people will start to reconsider this…

You'd think, and I do also hope that, but many lefties are really good at coming up with excuses...

Yeah, well the Leninists have their standard get out of "critical but unconditional support". However anarchists don't usually hold this line. They seem to have been arguing that the PKK have changed their ways and are all nice Bookchinites now and all the stuff like the mass murders, the suicide bombings, the butchering of civilians, the rapes, the talk of ethnic cleansing etc are all in the past. So I wonder what Graeber and co will say now…

Both I'd say. Suicide bombings are the tactics of hierarchical organizations and are an infallible signpost as to the unpleasant sort of society such groups would produce should they gain power.

From what I have seen of the news this attack, unlike the most recent one in Ankara, was pure terrorism, not directed at military combatants/police. There is no justification for this sort of thing, and in the end it always is to the detriment of the cause the perpetrators uphold. It also is a signpost as to the sort of society organizations that order such things would create.

This event has a context that shouldn't be ignored. I've recently read about how the PKK has formed some sort of 'united front' with a dog's breakfast of leftist organizations, some of whom are obviously Maoist. To my mind alliances with Maoists are in the same category as alliances with Nazis or other fascists. Many of the terrorist acts in the past few decades were the work of Maoist groups or those who can't see the difference between actual popular struggle and its high-jacking by would be totalitarian rulers with mass murder in mind. I'm going to have to look again at this evil marriage.

Turkey still has military service so the most visible soldiers hanging around in the streets are more likely to be conscripts. Tactically it seems like a pretty bizarre move from the PKK.

In terms of popularity among leftists there used to be PKK grafitti in North London where I grew up and the PKK ran one of the big protection rackets although I don't think they do anymore.

There are still occasionally posters for Ocalan and the PKK.

Saw a bunch of Ocalan Flags as Mayday in Paris ten years ago, mixed in with the stalinists if I remember correctly, but not much since. Although there are some indian maoists who put up grafitti round my way.

Demirtaş speaking on behalf the HDP: AKP Government Needs to Account for Ankara Attack. March 14, 2016

While suicide bombings are fucking horrible, they are no different than a missile.or shell firesd frrom a tank, helicopter or ship. Many, though none here, will argue that the latter are more civilized than the former.

Relating to what Khawaga says above, today the 'Coalition' fired two missiles into a crowded market in Yemen. Coincidently, today I was reading about the Omagh bombing and that it transpires that GCHQ (UK) and the FBI (USA) were keeping tracks on the bombers right up to the point of the bombing. I hope my remarks don't seem off topic but to try and separate all these acts of terror seems misguided. It is 'our' state/states that is ultimately responsible. How we stop it is beyond my comprehension. We can only try to nullify it.

The suicide bombing seemed to aim at the cops protecting mainly the governmental buildings in Kızılay including the Prime Minister ahmet davutoglu's office. Especially after the gezi park protests, a group of police called “çevik kuvvet” (rapid deployment force wing of the turkish police) are located continuously in the park in front of these buildings to protect the high ranked bureaucrats working in these governmental buildings and intervene into demonstrations in Kızılay easily. According to a taxi driver eyewitness, the car driven by the suicide bomber was making headway toward the police group but suddenly a bus carrying civilians’ rushes out and the bomb explodes.

Here http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/turkiye/498089/Hedef_Cevik_Kuvvet_ti.html# you can find the new with the head of “the police were targeted” from a kemalist newspaper called cumhuriyet/republic. (Though it is more like a left liberal newspaper nowadays whose general director Can Dündar has just released from prison. He was accused of spying after making the remarkable news of Turkish intelligent service support for ISIS. )

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/26/turkish-journalists-released-jail-court-rules-press-freedom-violated-dundar

Scarface, you don't know Kizilay, do you? This is very wrong.

Devrim

"Scarface, you don't know Kizilay, do you? This is very wrong. "
What is very wrong? Would you please explain? I think I know very well Kızılay.

"but this doesn't justify these actions in any way." yes from an aristo's logical understanding we can say that this does not justify these actions. It is true that "ethically" when civilians were killed by an attack (no matter who did this) we oppose the action. But that's something the modern law suppose it to be. Contrary, this philosophical mind does not reflect the real world and help us to understand the social conflicts we face day by day.

We should begin thinking on the question of "dialectics of violence". In a social setting, if the law protects only the ruler and bosses, then what else could the ruled do in order to protect its existence? Should we answer this as through bombing (destroying himself/herself) if there lefts nothing to do? We need to think more on this issue. In a world of violance committed against the oppressed continuosly and day by day, should we denounce an instant (against continuous violance) attack (that being realized just once like a suicide bombing) against the military people who protects the ruler? I am not so sure indeed.

No, it's my mistake. I apologise. I was down their last night and all of the Kizilay side of Atatürk Bul. was closed off. I'd assumed the bomb had been on that side of the road, in which case it would have been very illogical. I've just checked and it was on the Güven Park side, which now makes sense, sorry again.

Devrim

If the bombing was targeting a special operations division of the Turkish State, all we can really say is that either the bombers fucked up or counter-intelligence had wind of the operation and obstructed it. Either way it was a fuck up, which is inexcusable.

mollymew

Suicide bombings are the tactics of hierarchical organizations and are an infallible signpost as to the unpleasant sort of society such groups would produce should they gain power.

Maybe, but:

“We are going to rush the square,” replied Durruti, “and you will lead us.”
But no mass attack was necessary. Two barefooted, ragged peasant boys quietly wrapped bundles of dynamite around their waists, inserted the caps in one of the sticks, and then, with a lighted cigarette in the one hand and the short fuse in the other, suddenly dashed across the square. One fell wounded by a burst of machine-gun fire, but he crawled on and reached the cathedral’s porch. His companion had already applied his cigarette to the fuse. There was a moment of suspense and then the ear-tearing rip of an explosion... and another one. The boys had blown themselves up. The balcony with the machine guns crashed down in chunks to the flagstones.
A minute later the militia stormed across and a thick column of smoke poured from the tower. The Fascists in the bell chamber were roasting to death. Those inside the church surrendered."

From Dutch-Canadian journalist Pierre van Paassen recollections of his encounter with the anarchist militant Buenaventura Durruti and the anarchist militias in Barcelona during the early days of the Spanish Revolution in 1936. The entire extract is available here on Libcom.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/17/ankara-car-bomb-kurdish-militants-claim-responsibility-attacks

It's called "the heat of battle". These kids were no more suicide bombers than any of the thousands (tens of thousands) of soldiers in numberless wars who have sacrificed themselves in numerous ways for the benefit of their comrades even though it was obvious that they'd be killed. There is a world of difference between them and the dupes who are sacrificed by their cunning lupine leaders and indoctrinated for often years for the task that has been plotted beforehand - by the leaders.

red and black riot

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/17/ankara-car-bomb-kurdish-militants-claim-responsibility-attacks

So that's the Tak rather than PKK claiming responsibility, which is what I was expecting in the first place. My assumption, without knowing much about the situation, is that the Tak would be acting independently and without any authorisation from the PKK. This might be something like the difference between dissident Irish republicans and IRA/Sinn Fein. Does that sound like an accurate assessment or am I getting this wrong?

Mark.

red and black riot

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/17/ankara-car-bomb-kurdish-militants-claim-responsibility-attacks

So that's the Tak rather than PKK claiming responsibility, which is what I was expecting in the first place. My assumption, without knowing much about the situation, is that the Tak would be acting independently and without any authorisation from the PKK. This might be something like the difference between dissident Irish republicans and IRA/Sinn Fein. Does that sound like an accurate assessment or am I getting this wrong?

You are getting it right.

There will be some who claim that the TAK is secretly PKK. But then the state of Turkey calls every Kurd (and some Turks) it doesn't like as "PKK".

I don't think this is an accurate comparison. I think the fact that a PKK leader spoke public ally about the target of this bomb before TAK claimed responsibility suggests that the PKK knew what was happening.

Devrim

mollymew

It's called "the heat of battle". These kids were no more suicide bombers than any of the thousands (tens of thousands) of soldiers in numberless wars who have sacrificed themselves in numerous ways for the benefit of their comrades even though it was obvious that they'd be killed. There is a world of difference between them and the dupes who are sacrificed by their cunning lupine leaders and indoctrinated for often years for the task that has been plotted beforehand - by the leaders.

I get your point and I was only attempting to show that it takes a certain level of fanaticism to do something like blow oneself up for any reason, and also that that fanaticism doesn't necessarily always stem from hierarchical organization or simple brainwashing. Also, in saying this I am certainly not implying that the PKK's long standing guerrilla war with the state of Turkey is in anyway analogous to the autonomous movement of the Spanish working-classes that led to the revolution in Spain in 36.

In any case, I'll try to refrain from the historical analogizing in the future. It's lazy, generally confusing, often inaccurate, and is a poor way to foster dialogue. Unfortunately, It's a bad habit that I tend to indulge in at times.

Whoever is behind the bombings, PKK or a group manipulated by Erdogan’s secret service, we can see in all states and would-be states a general tendency towards war and efforts to promote nationalism as to bind ‘their’ populations, and especially ‘their own’ working class to the state or would-be state.

Terrorist bombings are no means of working class struggle.

It is the work of the bourgeoisie and its several nationalist factions, from national ‘liberation’ movements to leftist factions of the bourgeoisie and sheer manipulations of the state. Our present world is dominated by big and smaller gangs of criminals, fighting each other to the death. Only the working class has an alternative.

Ongoing strikes in Turkey show that workers can unite over borders of language, culture and nationality. In doing so the proletariat shows the way forward for humanity.

TAK is PKKs wing that operates in Western Turkey and mainly for the purpose of Terrorist attacks, pretty much like ISIS.

Ozcancan, a student, who was murdered in the recent attack was a friend of another suicide bomb attack victim. Ozcancan's close friend Ali Deniz was murdered in Ankara in October 15, 2015 attack organized by IS while he was waiting to join the peace march in protest against the state violence in Northern Kurdistan. Below is their last picture together, months before they were murdered separately, one by the IS the other by the PKK:

And yes Turkish left, as a miserable degenerate corpse, either falls behind PKK or Turkey. There is no genuine internationalist current in it. There are only those groups which keep quiet, and while having some mild criticisms for either of them, they keep to themselves. When it is most needed Turkish left is mostly quiet...

mikail firtinaci

TAK is PKKs wing that operates in Western Turkey and mainly for the purpose of Terrorist attacks, pretty much like ISIS.

do you have any links for more information/evidence about that? Sorry, just haven't heard of this before

Ozcancan, a student, who was murdered in the recent attack was a friend of another suicide bomb attack victim. Ozcancan's close friend Ali Deniz was murdered in Ankara in October 15, 2015 attack organized by IS while he was waiting to join the peace march in protest against the state violence in Northern Kurdistan. Below is their last picture together, months before they were murdered separately, one by the IS the other by the PKK:

That is so tragic :(

TAK adheres to Ocalan as its spiritual leader, and it is a "known unknown" that TAK responds to the demands of the PKK - as Ocalanisms official party. TAK has dormant cells in western Turkish cities and time and again it carries out suicide attacks. Many independent writers and journalists are claiming that the purpose of recent TAK attacks in Ankara aimed to diffuse the State pressure on PKK in Kurdistan, threaten the government with force in case it tries to intervene directly in Rojava and bring the war to the west of the country. It is clearly a show of force. If one follows the declarations of and interviews done with the PKK leadership it would be plainly clear that PKK is forcing the state to recognize itself and if it does not, hints the PKK leaders, more radical "young" elements, a new generation of Kurdish national liberationists will take over the movement and they are not open to negotiation. So, obviously there is a hidden threat here.

There is no way to know the whole story though. And I don't think that it is necessary either, at least to form an opinion. PKK is anti-proletarian in principle. It does not aim communism and a classless, border free world. It does not even care about the proletarian lives lost.

In the recent urban warfare process in north Kurdistan (southeast Turkey), PKK pushed to the front the poorest and the most desperate urban Kurdish youth to their destruction at the hands of the state, while the daily lives of middle class Kurds in cities like Diyarbakir remained, depressed as they were, continued with little disruption. Even the class character of the conflict shows, how both PKK and Turkey are keenly careful not to disturb, as far as they can, the Kurdish middle class with all the violent bloodshed and destruction they mutually bring on to the Kurdish and eventually to the Turkish proletarians.

Mikail,

Thank you very much for your clear and informative comment, going beyond speculation and mere facts, showing how both PKK and Turkish government try to pursue their goals by not disturbing the middle class.

We should see as well, that in fact this middle class consist for a big part of more educated working class, much despised by most anarchists, leftists, operaist who consider only blue collar workers without fixed contracts as the proletariat.

In fact these educated parts of our class are an integral part of the proletariat and its reflections are unmistakingly important for the evolution of class consciousness.

In the actual phase of confusion, widespread and open discussions in the class as a whole are preparing a reply in the near future.

It would be more realistic not to evaluate TAK as a “real, living” organisation. It is like a symptom. This symptom shows up mostly at the downtowns of big cities like İstanbul, izmir, ankara. These suicide attacks are mostly shocking and leads to harsh debates in the Turkish public opinion. I think this is what they actually want (to lead Turkish gov. to open democratic means to its legal wing hdp) . “Tak” is a taktic that pkk uses when it falls into difficult situation. For instance, after a bombing of Kandil by turkish planes where the pkk leaders are located (this last ankara bombing came after when turkish planes bombed kandil as far as I know). Or it is a missile attack after Turkish forces operate mercilessly against Kurds.

According to web, TAK was founded in 2004. From this time on, there are no more than nearly ten attacks claimed responsibility by TAK. The “organization” is called “Kurdistan Freedom Falcons”. Indeed, there are Kurdish stories on falcons and partridges. Kurds believe that they have been behaved like a “partridge” in history. That is their “national” destiny for centuries (this is what they believe in). They don’t want to be a “partridge” anymore. Even there is word for internal wars among Kurds called “brakuji” and you may know that the only animal which get trapped its races are partridges in order to survive. That is why, I think, they behave like falcons when they are in a bad situation (you know falcons are known for their hunting skills and being ruthless and it catches their prey once). And they lead to the death of their comrades by choosing them as suicide attackers which means they just behave them like “partridges”. The merciless dialectics ha?

There is also this reality that these suicide attacks play the role of easing Kurdish young radicals’ critics for pkk as being too moderate against the enemy (turkish government).
There is a misunderstanding that a unified international left alternative is missing in turkey. Indeed, kurdish question lies at the heart of it. The only way to counter the barbaric threats of radical Islamism in the middle east is to support kurdish led socialist revolutionary alternative. Turkish government uses the threat of ısıs against west as a bargaining tool and follows the strategy to isolate rojava and kurds just because Syrian kurds are internationalist and socialist. Rojava must be defended. It is the single alternative that today’s world socialists or internationalists may have. It is the only alternative against ısis barbarism. There is left only two alternative for us: the barbarism of ısis against socialism proposed by kurds. Where would you rather prefer to be? That’s all.

Coming to the picture that mikail posted. It is sad that we lost our comrades by two attacks with one difference. One of them was killed after an isis attack that turkish police intentionally teared gas on injured just after the bombing and the other comrade we lost after a kurdish attack intended to be against riot police in güvenpark that suicide bombers accidentally caused civilian deaths. We lost both of them in two attacks that is one is committed intentionally to destroy us, the latter is committed to reproduce us. The act is same but would be different results for different classes.

On TAK, I encounterd this article:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/02/turkey-outlawed-tak-will-not-deviate-line-of-ocalan.html

I found the link to it on radical left website in the Netherlands that I take serously. Wether the info in the article itself is reliable, I cannot say. But is t conforms a apicture in which TAK generally follows the PKK line, while operating independent from direct PKK con trol (so that the PKK can plausibly deny responsibility for PKK actions).

Another bombing in Taksim (one of the most visited centers of Istanbul) today. Everybody is scared to go out to the street. A horrible atmosphere of fear and terror reigns in major Turkish cities. I am afraid this will feed into open sectarian and nationalist violence. Everything is hinting that Turkey is heading towards an incredible social collapse. It is disgusting how the EU is supporting this bloody scenario by its tacit support for the Erdogan regime, just to kick the refugees out of Europe. "Barbarian Turks" are now the guardians of Europe against the poor and oppressed of the world outside. This is just nauseating.

mikail firtinaci

Another bombing in Taksim (one of the most visited centers of Istanbul) today. Everybody is scared to go out to the street. A horrible atmosphere of fear and terror reigns in major Turkish cities. I am afraid this will feed into open sectarian and nationalist violence.

Yes, so that on the news earlier. The bomb was in a busy shopping area, so don't think anyone is going to be able to make some weaselly effort to defend it saying it was aimed at police officers…

Yes, so that on the news earlier. The bomb was in a busy shopping area, so don't think anyone is going to be able to make some weaselly effort to defend it saying it was aimed at police officers…

It is reported that this time it may be an IS bomber. In fact, it is claimed that some Israeli tourists might have been the target. AKP members are already expressing their happiness openly on social media about massacred Jews. It is crazy... Islamists, the state or Kurdish nationalists can kill anyone in Turkey and they can still show some sort of stupid ideological legitimization for that, and worse still, they can find someone to accept it.

scarface

These suicide attacks are mostly shocking and leads to harsh debates in the Turkish public opinion. I think this is what they actually want (to lead Turkish gov. to open democratic means to its legal wing hdp) .

If that's want they intend to do with the bombings they are clearly off the loonie chart. Surely they must know that it leads to polarization and closing off any democratic road given that this is what always happens, not just in Turkey but nearly everywhere any such attacks are done (be it suicide bombings or another tactic).

Unconfirmed reports of use of chemical weapons by Turkish forces. It isn't clear whether the reports are accurate or not.

https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/Gever?src=hash

https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/yüksekova?src=hash

Today another suicide bombing attack happened just 1 km away from gezi park in taksim istanbul. 5 dead (all of them are foreigners including israelis and irish civils) and nearly 30 wounded. Among the woundeds, there are 12 foreigners.

Before newroz meetings in 21st of may (celebration of coming springtime as a hope for life for kurds), it seems that those acts are made to frighten people to go to the streets and to prevent people gather for protests. The bombing is another isis-turkish intellegence led operation. While they were killing foreigners in istanbul, they used chemical weapons against kurds in yuksekova at the same time causing 40 deaths-yet another "foreigners" for the islamist rulers in turkey. Indeed, the turkish government together with isis is playing a dangerous game by terrorizing not only turkey but also the whole world.

Reis (a noun used for the president similar to fuhrer) Erdogan openly defended hitler's germany as a regime just one month ago. This policy opens the way for the rising stupid ideologious (like trump type in the usa) and fascism in the west. It also helps sunni islamist to unite as a whole against west because of rising islamophobia thanks to isis attacks in paris and refugee crises which helps to divide ordinary people in europe.

This bombing happened just before turkish and iranian pm were to meet in istanbul. Turkey tries to get iran to its near in foreign policy against the so called west. They use this argument that you are either a muslim or a kafur. If you are a kafur like socialist kurds or turks, you have no chance to live and you must be destroyed. He is an anti-communist and anti-semitist. The only way to counter this is the international support for the rojava as it "represents" the alternative hope for a better world. If rojava falls, fascism wins. Pm davutoglu even talked about destroying sur (the center of kurdish located city diyarbekir where kurdish urban militias and turkish army made a one month long war in recent days) like toledo in spain in the 30s.

According to Israeli intelligence today's attack was made by an IS affiliate (a Turkish national).

Mark.

This might be something like the difference between dissident Irish republicans and IRA/Sinn Fein. Does that sound like an accurate assessment or am I getting this wrong?

IRA/Sinn Fein has abandoned armed struggle, PKK hasn't, and TAK has never been very dissident (or displayed any autonomy, beyond having a different name). My impression was that it was more like the difference between Fatah and Black September. It offers plausible deniability.

Translation into English of a leaflet on the bombings, distributed in the Netherlands:
http://libcom.org/blog/bombings-suicide-terrorists-ankara-istanbul-20032016

Thank you all for forming our thoughts!