REVENGE TAKEN ON HAKKARI

"You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security."
~ Vincenzo Vinciguerra.

The Kurdish patriots of Hakkari are now being made to pay for their boycott of the phony AKP constitutional referendum with their lives.

Earlier today a dolmuş was blown up by contra-guerrillas in Hakkari province near the village of Geçitli. Ten civilians are dead as a result. This is no different than the Güçlükonak massacre, which was the work of the Turkish military or, more recently, the massacre in Beytüşşebap, Beşağaç, in which 12 people, including village guards, were killed.


Villagers apparently rushed to the scene of the blast and fought the TSK in order to preserve evidence that was left behind. Shades of Şemdinli! You remember the Şemdinli bombing, in which the citizens of the town chased down and captured the TSK perpetrators and found loads of evidence in the perpetrators' JITEM-registered vehicle.

According to KCK, from Hürriyet:

“This is a counter-action against the people of Hakkari who joined the boycotting of the referendum on Sept. 12,” KCK officials were quoted as saying on Fırat’s website. The officials were also quoted as saying that they would not carry out any attacks until Sept. 20, the end of the cease-fire announced earlier by the PKK.

More from PKK, from Fırat News (http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=1035):

PKK said the guerilla forces are committed to the unilateral ceasefire, declared on 13 August.

Kurdish boycott campaign against the constitutional referendum was most effective in Hakkari, only 7 percent of the registered voters casted their ballots.

PKK statement said in Peyanus village only 5 voters casted their ballots while 99 percent of the voters supported BDP's boycott campaign and labelled the attack "a response to Peyanus's attitude in the referendum."

"The attack in Hakkari is an attack to all the Kurds" PKK said.

PKK also warned AKP government saying "The people of Hakkari is not alone".

PKK declared the victims as "martyrs of democracy" and paid condolences to the relatives and Kurdish people.

Furthermore, Selahattin Demirtaş had this to say, again from the Hürriyet link:

Later Thursday, BDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş condemned the attack in Hakkari, calling it “inhumane” and saying he believed it was carried out not by the PKK but by the “deep state,” a term used to describe an alleged criminal network within the Turkish state.

The BDP chief said he and other party officials had traveled to Ankara from Diyarbakır to participate in a secret meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek on Thursday but the meeting was canceled after the blast, CNNTürk reported him as saying at a press conference.

Demirtaş was also reported as saying the cancellation implied that the government saw the BDP as responsible for the blast.

It may appear to Selahattin Arkadaş that AKP blames BDP for the massacre but the cancellation of negotiations with BDP by AKP clearly indicates something else for me. For me, it indicates that the AKP and The Murderer Erdoğan are behind this contra-guerrilla operation. AKP needed an excuse to not speak to Kurds so it cooked up another massacre, in the finest tradition of the Ankara regime. The AKP ordered this massacre; TSK happily obliged.




Among the evidence left behind at the scene of the massacre were two military bags with two unexploded anti-tank mines, flares, bayonet, hand grenade, and a Hakkari mountain commando brigade bag containing canned tuna, chocolate, soda, cheese, and bread.

Now this is very, very sloppy. What professional soldier or contra-guerrilla would leave behind such a mess after completing a showy false flag operation? Such a slob should properly be shot. But, of course, this is very interesting in what it tells me and what it should tell others. It tells me that a professional did not do this job. It tells me that TSK ordered korucular, or village guards--non-professionals, in other words--to do this job. Hell, TSK remembers Şemdinli very well. AKP remembers Şemdinli very well, too.

Ah, well . . . 20 September is only a few days away. I can hardly wait!

HASHISH AND THE MARDIN MASSACRE

"What are they trying to hide?"
~ Ahmet Türk.

Some of you may remember Akin Birdal before he became one of DTP's Diyarbakır parliamentarians. If so, you will recall that he was the IHD president whom the state attempted to assassinate in 1998. Birdal has also been imprisoned for publicly urging a peaceful solution to the Kurdish situation in Turkey. In other words, there are very few others in Turkey who are as qualified to investigate human rights violations or state assassinations than Akin Birdal.

According to Akşam, the TBMM's Human Rights Commission has formed a sub-commission of five parliamentarians (out of the nine parliamentarians on the Human Rights Investigation Commission) to investigate the Mardin massacre and Akin Birdal, who is one of the nine members of the TBMM's Human Rights Commission, has been refused a place on the sub-commission.

My first thought about stuff like this is: "What are they trying to hide?" I'm not the only one who thinks that way. So does Ahmet Türk (Source: http://www.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=nuce&nuceID=7451):

"To this date, we have always been excluded. However the behavior of the Human Rights Commission is quite thought-provoking. The idea of creating a parliamentary investigation commission for the violence in Mardin came from our friend Akin Birdal. But although he is a member of the commission, he is not included in the sub-commission for Mardin. Whereas the sub-commission consists of five members. Despite this fact, our party, which has a group in the parliament, is excluded from the sub-commission's investigation. This contradicts justice and equality principle. Why are we being excluded? We are not going to be silent about this."

[ . . . ]

"What are they trying to hide? We are not going to be silent about the behavior that excludes our party. Although there wasn't any member from MHP at the commission's meeting, the chairman calls him and tells him to come. However, he [the commission's AKP chairman] excludes our friend, who is already present at the meeting. In the past, I was also the Human Rights chairman. From all the political parties which have groups in the parliament, the subcommission gets members. There is a logic of exclusion in this case. We came here [to parliament] to represent our people, not to be excluded. The chairman of the parliament must intervene immediately [in this case of injustice].

Maybe they're trying to hide that business about the hashish in Bilge village (Source: http://www.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=nuce&nuceID=7430):

Hashish fight over 40 thousand donums [Note: a donum is a unit of area equal to 1,000 square meters]

After the Assyrians and Armenians emigrated from their Bilge village land, the land became state property. However, the right to own that land divided the Çelebi family in two. The planting of hashish in almost 40 thousand donums in Bilge village caused the fight between village guards over shares.

Last month when there was a study for land registry, the debate over sharing of the land, which is marked as state property, was revealed Two weeks ago, the same debate heated up between nephew and uncle families [the Çelebis]. After the debate over the land--whose real owners were Assyrians and Armenians--was revealed, the Çelebi nephew family decided in favor of the massacre and the date for the massacre was chosen consciously. According to them, the wedding celebration was the most suitable time when everyone from the other family would be together. Thus they could massacre all of them without any witness.

Scapegoat PKK by not leaving any witness

The Çelebi nephew family wanted to massacre the members of the family of the [Çelebi] uncle without leaving any living witness, thus they would be able to blame PKK for this massacre.

In the massacre, where 44 people died, if there weren't any witnesses, the incident would have been blamed on PKK because, at the very beginning hours of the incident, several news agencies and TV news channels stated that village guards had fired back against "terrorists" who succeeded in escaping due to a dust storm.

However, the three wounded witnesses who survived the massacre and gave the village guard perpetrators' names, turned their plan upsidedown.

The Sultan village garrison is two kilometers away from Bilge village, however the troops arrived at the village where the incident took place two hours later.

All of this is despite the fact that, as I mentioned previously, right after the massacre began, one of the victims managed to escape and go to the military garrison to warn a village guard relative of what was happening. The village guard at the garrison warned the military commanders, saying "they have left no one in our village; we should go." The response of the military commanders was "If you want, you can go, but we are not going now."

How typical is all of this? A fight over illegal drugs, a massacre, attempt to blame the Kurdish freedom movement, and the state's authorities in the region showing up well after any danger is passed . . . kind of like state authorities acted at Güngören.

Also, as I mentioned previously, the survivors screwed the whole thing up.

For more on the Mardin massacre, check Children of the Sun for a discussion from İsmail Beşikçi on the purpose of village guards.

Zerkesorg has a discussion of the massacre, too, with a translated opinion piece on what the massacre is called and what it would be called under other conditions. Very interesting, particularly since the Ankara regime's propaganda about the massacre has saturated English-language media to such an extent that even bat-shit crazy, ultra-rightwing, neo-nazi, pro-terrorist, anti-Muslim fascist extremists, like this one, are advertising, for free, the spin of the Islamist regime in Turkey . . . And they're calling it "honor killing," but only because that's also a racist site.

It reminds me of the old adage that says that the biggest mistake intelligent people make is to refuse to believe that people are a stupid as they really are.

Hevallo's recent post mentions a subject that I'll be working on soon, and that will be the translation of Hasan Cemal's interview series at Milliyet with Murat Karayılan. Lots of speculation is flying around about this, especially since Abdullah Gül said that he wanted to see Hasan Cemal, along with certain other politicos such as the new foreign minister, Davutoğlu, and Cemil "Chicken Little" Çiçek.

Regarding the interview with Karayılan, we need to remember that nothing he's said in the interview is new to us. Karayılan has been saying the very same things that PKK has been saying for years now, especially since PKK issued its statement on a democratic solution to the Kurdish question back in 2006--three years ago! Because the information is censored by Google, you'll have to copy-and-paste http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3467 to read the three-year-old declaration.

At this point, I see Hasan Cemal's interview as introducing PKK's long-standing offer of a democratic solution, which has been ignored or denied by the Ankara regime and its worldwide publicists, to the Turkish public for the first time. Hevallo is absolutely correct in warning about provocations because we all know what happened the last time a Turkish president seriously considered a peaceful solution. Things are not much different now; there are still a lot of Deep State types who are making a lot of money from the status quo.

It may turn out to be a very interesting summer after all.

FALSE FLAG OPERATION PLANNED FOR 2009

"I personally think that everyone - journalists, professors, politicians - must think about the implications of the strategy if tension and the false flag. Here we are, indeed, in presence of phenomena that escape from every kind of agreement. That is why, every time that there are terrorist attacks, we must ask questions and try to understand what that implies."
~ Daniele Ganser.

It sounds to me like the Washington regime is planning another, major, false flag operation like it did seven years ago to initiate the corporate-friendly "Global War on Terror, Inc."

From 20 October:

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

From Colin "Saddam-Has-Weapons-of-Mass-Destruction" Powell:

From Madeleine "One-Million-Dead-Iraqi-Kids-Are-Definitely-Worth-It" Allbright:

Coincidentally, or not, the Pentagon and its consultants are all ready to act:

Veteran Pentagon consultant Michael Bayer, chairman of the Defense Business Board, told his fellow panelists that the new president's inner circle should "set aside time in transition to identify the planning, gravitas and interagency process necessary to respond to a likely first-270-day crisis."

Because the PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act weren't enough, Congress is looking into creating a domestic "intelligence" agency:

The United Kingdom has MI-5, which roots out spies and terrorists in the British Isles.

Canada has CSIS -- the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Now Congress is asking: Should the U.S. have its own domestic intelligence agency?

On Monday, at the request of Congress, the RAND Corporation outlined the pros and cons of establishing a domestic intelligence agency. It also discussed different ways to organize a new entity, either as part of an existing department or as a new agency.

Also--again because the PATRIOT Act and Military Commissions Act weren't enough--NORTHCOM became operational on 1 October:

On October 1, the Pentagon, for the first time ever, dedicated an Army force specifically to NorthCom, which is in charge of securing not some foreign region but the United States of America.

The unit it assigned is the 3rd Infantry, First Brigade Combat Team, which has spent three of the last five years in Iraq. It was one of the first units to get to Baghdad, and it was active in retaking and patrolling Fallujah. One of its specialties is counterinsurgency.

This marks a change for NorthCom, which was established on October 1, 2002. Its website still says it “has few permanently assigned forces,” and that “the command is assigned forces whenever necessary to execute missions, as ordered by the President and the Secretary of Defense.”

Leahy “asked for a briefing from his staff” on this development and “wants to monitor the situation,” an aide to Leahy said.

Leahy was instrumental in getting Congress to repeal the “Insurrection Act Rider” in the 2006 defense appropriations bill. That rider had given the President sweeping power to use military troops in ways contrary to the Insurrection Act and Posse Comitatus Act. The rider authorized the President to have troops patrol our streets in response to disasters, epidemics, and any “condition” he might cite.

Meanwhile, can it be that the US Joint Chiefs of Staff have already been coordinating the upcoming false flag operation with the general staffs of other nations?

Will that upcoming false flag operation have anything to do with biowarfare? Were the recent anthrax-wannabe mailings a dry-run for all of this?

Just in case, the Department of Homeland Security will be opening a new bio-"defense" lab in Maryland.

Inquiring minds want to know.

BLACK OPERATIONS IN IRAQ BY TURKISH CONTRA-GUERRILLAS

"Turkey is working in Iraq with 3 major Sunni radical groups: Ansar al-Sunni Army, Iraq Islamic Army, and the 1920 Revolution Battalion, especially within the last 6 months. Turkey is supplying technical and logistic support to them."
~ Özgür Gündem.

Someone else from the US military comes along and tries to spread propaganda for Washington's puppet government in Ankara. Posted over at the MoJo Blog:

Evidence is piling up that the Turkish government will commit its armed forces against the de facto Kurdish state in Northern Iraq sooner rather than later. . .

[ . . . ]

What most Americans don't know is that the Turkish government has tried to negotiate a settlement with the Kurds through its new Special Envoy for Iraq, Murat Ozcelik. People who know Ozcelik insist he is the best person to negotiate Turkey's peace with the Kurds. Unfortunately, his Kurdish counterpart, Massoud Barzani, has turned out to be a fool who thinks he leads a pan-Kurdish movement inside Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

What the hell is Murat Özçelik doing "negotiat[ing] Turkey's peace with the Kurds" in South Kurdistan (Northern Iraq)? Turkey needs to negotiate peace with the 20 million Kurds inside Turkey and I've got a news flash for Özçelik and Douglas Macgregor, the author of the piece at the MoJo Blog: Mesûd Barzanî does not speak for the 20 million Kurds of Turkey. There are 20 DTP parliamentarians in the TBMM who were elected by the Kurds of Turkey as their representatives, and they are the ones that Özçelik must begin negotiations with.

Then we have the KCK Executive Council which also represents the Kurds of Turkey. Özçelik must also bring them into negotiations and then we can have a dialog along the lines already proposed by KCK in August 2006 (http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3467):

The framework for the steps that need to be developed mutually in the second phase for a permanent solution:

1- The acknowledgement of the Kurdish identity and the constitutional guarantee of all identities under the identity of a Citizen of Turkey as the main identity,

2- The lifting of obstacles on the development of the Kurdish language and culture, the acknowledgement of education in the mother tongue and Kurdish acknowledged as the official second language alongside Turkish in the Kurdistan region, and with this to show respect to other minority cultures,

3- The acknowledgement, on the basis of freely practicing politics and organizing, of the right to thought, belief and freedom of expression, the lifting of all social inequalities in the constitution and laws, firstly being those of gender discrimination,

4- A social reconciliation project with the aim of mutual forgiveness of both people’s for the development of a peace and freedom union, on this basis the release of political prisoners including the PKK Leadership, and no obstacles to them participating in politics and social life,

5- The removal of forces in Kurdistan there for the purposes of special war, the abolition of the village guard system and the necessary social and political projects to be developed for the return of displaced villagers,

6- In parallel to the realization of the above articles, the initiation, with a timetable determined by both parties, of the gradual disarmament and legal participation into the democratic social life.

All of this, of course, would take place within the current borders of Turkey:

We would like as a movement to emphasize once again that the right solution is a democratic autonomy within the borders of Turkey. We believe that a solution in the unity of Turkey will be for the benefit of firstly the Kurdish people and all the people of the region.

Contrast that with the propaganda of Macgregor:

. . . the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant group that seeks to establish a Kurdish state in the region.

Macgregor actually admits that current tension between Kurds and Sunnis in Iraq is the result of Turkish black operations:

Much of the violence that is picking up between the Kurds and the Sunnis may well be the first sign of a Turkish counter-offensive to punish the Kurds for their continued support of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant group that seeks to establish a Kurdish state in the region.

Thanks, pal, for confirming what was reported one year ago by Özgür Gündem and carried on Rastî:

According to Özgür Gündem, a contra-guerrilla base has been founded in Amed (Diyarbakır) by the Ankara regime. These contra-guerrillas not only will operate against Kurds in the region of Amed and North Kurdistan, but also against Kurds in Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

The goal of the contra-guerrillas is to delay the Kerkuk referendum through black operations. Since Turkey cannot conduct a military operation in the South, it's initiating black operations through this contra-guerrilla group, operating in the same way it did in Şemdinli, in the Council of State, and in the Hrant Dink murder. JITEM and the Patriots Movement were behind those operations.

Ostensibly the contra-guerrilla group raised donations from $500,000 per month to $1,000,000 per month for the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF). I say "ostensibly," because it's more likely that the "donations" are coming directly from the Ankara regime. In addition, the contra-guerrillas give rewards for each successful ITF operation.

Turkey is working in Iraq with 3 major Sunni radical groups: Ansar al-Sunni Army, Iraq Islamic Army, and the 1920 Revolution Battalion, especially within the last 6 months. Turkey is supplying technical and logistic support to them.

The contra-guerrillas contacted some Arab tribes in Mosul and promised economic assistance to the tribes if they encourage the Sunnis to attack KDP and PUK offices.

Turkey has also been in contact with Arabs in Kerkuk, who had moved there during Saddam's arabization. Turkey organized these Arabs into death squads and provided them with assassination lists of Kurdish leaders. Attacks against Turkmen leaders, including Iraqi Turkmen Front leaders, would be encouraged in order create chaos.

They have assassination plans for some Arab and Turkmen leaders in order to turn Kurds and other peoples against each other and create a basis for the justification of the assassinations of Kurdish leaders.

The goal is to delay the Kerkuk referendum and not to allow Kerkuk to become part of Kurdistan.

The Ankara regime has invaded South Kurdistan in pursuit of PKK a number of times in the past and the TSK has always left with its tail between its legs. If the Ankara regime thinks it will insert itself in order to save Kerkuk for the ITF, then it had better learn the meaning of the word "quagmire", from Andrew Lee Butters almost one year ago:

So this is going to be a slow motion disaster rather than a spectacular one. Turkey will have to go deeper and deeper into Iraq, committing itself more and more to a course that will at best be ineffectual and at worst drag it and Iraqi Kurdistan into the great sucking sound that is the American project in Iraq. The only way out of this is for the Turkish state to begin political negotiations with the PKK, an internal enemy that it has been unable to defeat for more than 20 years. But the US, which labels the PKK a terrorist group, is hardly in a position to preach to its allies about talking to terrorists.

At the same time, Murat Karayılan confirmed the potential "quagmire":

Speaking to The Associated Press deep in the Qandil mountains straddling the Iraq-Turkish border, some 150 kilometers (94 miles) from the northern Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, Karayilan warned an incursion would "make Turkey experience a Vietnam war."

[ . . . ]

"Iraq's Kurds will not support the Turkish army," he said. "If Turkey starts its attack, we will swing the Turkish public opinion by political, civil and military struggle."

[ . . . ]

Karayilan said the PKK was only defending itself against attacks by the Turks.

"This was not the first time. It happened many times before and no one talked about it, so why this time," he said, adding the clashes took place at least 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the border, within Turkey, not Iraq.

He said he believes the Turkish attacks are meant to destabilize Iraq, not remove the rebels.

"Turkey is only making pretexts to enter the Kurdistan region in Iraq," he added.

For those hard of understanding: Quagmire = Vietnam.

Not only should we expect meddling by the Ankara regime in the refusal to allow elections in Kerkuk, but we should also consider the recent turmoil in Xanaqîn as the result of Turkish contra-guerrillas, including recent roadside bomb attacks that resulted in the deaths of six peşmêrge.

Furthermore, let's not expect much from the KRG, Barzanî, or Talabanî. They have too much money tied up in business interests with Ankara for them to take a stand against Turkish black operations aimed against Kurdistan.

DEEP STATE TREACHERY

"It was a PKK-style blast. One million people rallied in Spain to speak out about a similar attack."
~ Deniz Baykal, CHP Chairman.

"See, another treacherous PKK attack!"

Baykal's analogy is more appropriate than he thinks, but not in the way he thinks. The demonstrations he mentions resulted in the fall of the Partido Popular government, which initially blamed ETA for the Madrid train bombings:

Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar called for nationwide protests against the Basque separatist group ETA. "The government asks Spaniards to demonstrate tomorrow [Friday] in the streets of all of Spain... under the slogan 'with the victims, with constitution and for the defeat of terrorism'," Aznar said.

Words that Aznar has lived to regret. May the same happen to Baykal and Erdoğan.

STRATEGY OF TENSION IN ISTANBUL

"I was quite surprised to learn that by far the most extensive and destructive stay-behind operations were those carried out in Turkey under the code name Counter-Guerrilla."
~ Tim Howells, "How Our Governments Use Terrorism To Control Us".

There was a minor incident in Istanbul today when three armed gunmen attacked the police at the entrance to the American consulate compound. The NYTimes is as good a rag as any to give you the basic rundown. The media lapdogs are dutifully echoing the straw man of the US embassy in Ankara, Ross "If I Only Had A Brain" Wilson, in blaming this little shoot-out on Al-Qaeda.

However, an item from the AP tells me that something else entirely is going on and it doesn't have too much to do with Al-Q:

NTV television and Dogan news agency identified the attackers as Erkan Kargin, 26, and Raif Topcil, 20, from the southeastern city of Bitlis and Bulent Cinar, 23, from the eastern city of Igdir. Police would not confirm their identities, but Interior Minister Besir Atalay said two of the assailants had criminal records.

Why, oh why do I smell Turkish Hezbollah? Could it be because the gunmen were recruited from The Southeast, where the AKP has been attempting to resurrect the Turkish Hezbollah? Turkish media is proposing that the gunmen were members of the IBDA-C (İslami Büyükdoğu Akıncılar Cephesi; Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front) and I wasted too much time reading various articles with headlines that were too promising compared to what information was actually delivered. Basically, there are suggestions of a similar ideology between IBDA-C and Al-Q but nothing that substantially, well, substantiates a deeper relationship that would justify equating IBDA-C with Al-Q. It does, however, make great propaganda copy for the lapdog media.

There has also been linkage in Turkish media with IBDA-C and the series of bombings in Istanbul in 2003 which included attacks on the British consulate in Istanbul, the HSBC bank, and two synagogues. Here's something on that, from the BBC:

In 2003, the group claimed responsibility for devastating bombings of the British consulate in Istanbul, the local headquarters of the HSBC bank and two synagogues, which together which left 58 dead, including British Consul General Roger Short.

Although last year saw the jailing of 48 people for their roles in the bombings - seven of them for life - their connection with IBDA-C is still unclear.

Turkish officials have always maintained that the bombings were the work of a separate group with direct links to al-Qaeda, known as the "Warriors for Islam" and that IBDA-C lacked the organisational ability to launch such a complex operation.

If the perpetrators of the latest attack are found to be members of IBDA-C and the reports of their recent return from Afghanistan prove to be true, the Turkish police may be forced to rethink their opinion of the group.

But, Turkish Hezbollah was more widely recognized as having carried out those bombings.

It's also widely recognized that the Ankara regime created Turkish Hezbollah.

As the Ankara regime tried to use Turkish Hezbollah to attempt to crush the PKK and then forgot about it until a shoot-out in Istanbul in 2000, so now it seems to have forgotten about its creation again until the shoot-out today. Could it be that the Ankara regime took a page out of the CIA's playbook, thinking it would be a very easy thing to control its creature, Turkish Hezbollah, even as the CIA thought it would be a very easy thing to control its own creature, Al-Q?

It's also widely recognized that other Islamist groups use Turkey, particularly Istanbul, as a staging ground, in cahoots with the Gray Wolves, and that these groups move freely across the borders. Other groups, such as Nizam-i Alem are involved with the Ergenekon gang.

Now ask yourself: Why was the attack carried out the way it was? Why go up to the entrance to the consulate compound and try to blast your way in with guns? The area around the consulate is wooded; it would be easy to use an RPG to blast it under cover. Why do it the stupid way instead? I suspect this attack is yet another act in the show known as the Strategy of Tension, as the Deep State reorganizes itself according to agreements reached between the AKP and the TSK.

Fırat News is awaiting a statement from HPG about the seizure of three German climbers. Of one thing, we can be guaranteed: These Germans will receive much better treatment from HPG than Kurds receive from German authorities. Remember the PKK way In the meantime, Hevallo opines.

Also check out Gordon Taylor's recent post--which I've been meaning to mention for a few days now--on the spread of HPG's areas of operation.

NO CONSPIRACIES HERE

"Although the institute calls itself a "non-partisan policy research organization," scholars at Hudson consistently reveal an ideological agenda in their work."
~ Hudson Institute entry at Right Web.

Hevallo brings up a good point to remember about the recent Amed bombing and the development of the situation in North Kurdistan in the last few months:

Remember the Hudson Institute 'Scenarios'?

Where the Turkish military was exposed going through all sorts of different 'scenarios' in the right wing 'think tank' in the US earlier in the year. And the leaked reports about US/Turkish 'special operations' in South Kurdistan.

My guess is that all these 'scenarios' that have so far been carried out, Beytussebap, bombings of Qandil and now this Diyarbakir bomb are all pieces of pre planned campaign, to justify not only the severe repression of the Kurdish Freedom Movement in Turkey, that is at its strongest in history but also to gain support for and justify a military invasion of South Kurdistan.

At the beginning of the year it sounded like a conspiracy theory, Turkey and the US plotting to invade Kurdistan and grab Kurdish oil. But now it seems all too plausible.

Who was sitting with the Paşas and the same Americans who faked all the "intelligence" for the Iraq War and now attempt to bullshit their way to a war in Iran? Qubad Talabanî, whose father lectures Northern Kurds to support the AKP. So you have to ask yourself what kind of deal the Southern Kurdish leadership has cut with both the Americans and the Turks at the expense of the Kurdish people.

Believe me, they ain't doing it out of the goodness of their little black hearts.

If you take the time to actually read the Hudson Institute entry at Right Web, you'll see names that repeat over and over in neocon circles, such as Norman Podhoretz, Meyrav Wurmser, Elliot Abrams, Francis Fukuyama, Richard Perle, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Center for Security Policy, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), and the RAND Corporation--filth all.

Goran at Zanetî has something new up about the US-Turkey relationship. Among other facts, he mentions that which very few bother to mention:

The complicity of the United States and NATO in the oppressive policies of the Turkish State may come as a surprise to many. The moral support or even the billions of dollars worth of weapons during the Cold War era are not the only things that were provided to Turkey. The U.S. military through the hundreds of their advisors actively trained the same Turkish military, Special Forces and intelligence services that carried out the vast array of human rights abuses that continue to this day. In more recent times, the U.S. continues to extend their support through Joint Combined Exchange Training led by U.S. Special Forces. The human rights abuses including the “numerous violations of the laws of war, including village destruction, indiscriminate fire, and ‘disappearances’" carried out by the Turkish Special Forces - trained by the U.S. forces - have been carefully documented by various groups such as the Human Rights Watch (HRW).(11) The serious war crimes, which could be questionably labeled as acts of genocide, committed by these U.S.-backed Turkish forces have been condemned by the HRW and reports recommend that such forces should not be deployed in Kurdish civilian regions.

Now think about that in light of Hevallo's point about the planning that went on at the Hudson Institute.

Nor is Hevallo alone in wondering if there are "any journalists or editors left in this world that have enquiring minds"; so does Axin Arbili at The Conservative Voice:

Despite all the deceptions and lies spread by Turkish and Western governments, and by so-called independent journalists or political analysts, the truth and reality is quite different: The Turkish army is not fighting terrorism, it is bombing the Kurdish resistance against Turkish tyranny and oppression.

[ . . . ]

The West prefers to believe in a friendly Turkey and supports it financially and militarily. Turkey is, after Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the third-largest recipient of US military aid. US tax monies finance Turkey in its dirty war against a defenceless people.

The Kurdish resistance and liberation leader, Abdullah Öcalan, was captured by the US secret services and handed over to the Turks. How strange that at the same time, the West supports two million Muslims in seceding from Serbia and establishing a second Albania.

Even more outrageous is the West's support of the Arabs, who call themselves Palestinians, in establishing a 23rd Arab state; notwithstanding that it is to be carved out of ancestral and biblical Jewish territory. The injustices done to the Kurds, whose history and legitimate claims to an independent, sovereign state infinitely transcends those of the so-called Palestinian Arabs. But Kurdish aspirations are ignored.

If Kurdish aspirations are ignored, then it's high time for a little in-your-face resistance to spread like wildfire . . . from Turkey, to Europe and beyond.

Serkeftin!

BLACK OPERATIONS IN THE KURDISH CAPITAL

"A good Kurd is a dead Kurd."
~ Türk İntikam Tugayı, 12 September 2006.

The last bombing in Amed (Diyarbakır), carried out on 12 September 2006, was the work of Turkish state forces, in particular Türk Intikam Tugayı (Turkish Revenge Brigade--TİT). At the time, TİT claimed the bombing on their website (quickly pulled from the Internet shortly thereafter):

"To the great Turkish people. In the recent period in many areas of our country, the bloody PKK terrorist organization has martyred our soldiers, police officers and our youth. We, as the Turkish Revenge Brigade, swear on our flag colored red with the blood of our martyrs, that for every Turk that PKK kills in [western Turkey], we will kill 10 Kurds in Diyarbakir. [ . . .] Here are photos taken during the preparation for the operation on September 12, 2006, dedicated to Private Ali Balikci who was martyred during duty by the PKK terrorist organization in the Eruh district of Siirt [ . . . ] A good Kurd is a dead Kurd."

DozaMe captured the photos for posterity from TİT's website and can be viewed at the .pdf link given above.

It looks like TİT has carried out another bombing in Amed today, again detonating the blast with a remote-control device:

A bomb exploded near a shopping mall in the largely Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey on Thursday, killing five people and wounding more than 60, in the largest attack on a Turkish city in months, the authorities said.

The bomb was placed in a parked car and detonated by remote control shortly before 5 p.m., just as a shuttle bus carrying military personnel passed, Turkish officials said.

At this point, unfortunately, Turkish soldiers only appear to have been wounded and reports indicate that TİT's blast only managed to kill civilians--school kids.

You should ask yourself who it is that can pack a car full of explosives, park it next to a Turkish military compound in The Southeast, and blow it up? Remember how the attempted assassination of Beytuşşebap's DTP mayor was set up? Does anyone honestly think that PKK sympathizers who set cars on fire with molotov cocktails could possibly drive around in The Southeast with that much explosives and not be stopped?

Or, if someone wants to believe that PKK sneaked so much explosives across the border from Iraq, how could they get it passed the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the region? How could they drive it through OHAL areas without being stopped?

No. Only the Ankara regime could carry out such an attack in the world's largest Kurdish city.

The Turkish education minister tried to fudge his way around the bombing by saying, "I deeply condemn this blast if it is the result of a terrorist attack," which means that he's not condemning it because, in his view, it was not a terrorist attack. It was an attack by the Turkish Republic, and is, therefore, acceptable to the regime.

Let's note one other piece of trivia, shall we? The date of the Ankara regime's last bombing of Amed was significant as the date of the beginning of the current war against the Kurdish people--12 September 1980. In addition, 12 September 2006 was the day that Lockheed Martin's "PKK coordinator" Joseph Ralston arrived in Ankara on his first official mission as "PKK coordinator":

It is no coincidence that this most recent attack against the Kurdish people happened on the same day that "special envoy" Joseph Ralston arrived in Ankara. The US is backing Turkey in its renewal of the Dirty War, and the bombing in Amed is one more sign that "psychological operations," a special kind of warfare for which the US trained Turkish security forces, are being resurrected.

It's also no coincidence that this recent attack by the racist Ankara regime takes place just days before Abdullah Gül's 6 January visit to the US. I mean, he has to come with a reason to beg and I guess he couldn't find any Saudis to fly commercial jet aircraft into the Dedeman Hotel, so he has to settle for a TİT bomb.

AMED IS BOMBED AGAIN

Vehicles burn after an explosion in Diyarbakir, south eastern Turkey, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008. A car bomb exploded in the Kurdish-dominated southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Thursday, wounding at least 20 people, including some military personnel, news reports said. (AP Photo/Ibrahim Yakut, Anatolia)

Vehicles are engulfed by flames following an explosion in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, January 3, 2008. REUTERS

Turkish police officers inspect the wreckage of a military bus following an explosion in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir January 3, 2008. At least three people were killed in an explosion on Thursday that wrecked a military vehicle in the southeast Turkish city of Diyarbakir, NTV television quoted police sources as saying. REUTERS/Anatolian

Police inspect the area of an explosion in Diyarbakir. A powerful car bomb exploded Thursday near a military base in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, killing five people, hospital officials said. (AFP)

TURKISH MILITARY: "GOOD BOYS" GO FREE

"I know that officer, we worked in the region together. He is not a kind to commit crime."
~ Yaşar Büyükanıt.

The Şemdinli murderers have been freed.

The two JIT officers and the "confessor" who were convicted to 39 years, 10 months and 27 days by Van's 3rd Heavy Penalty Court for manslaughter, forming a gang, and attempting manslaughter, have been released by the military court that was retrying their case. Apparently the military court does not believe that that the perpetrators of the Semdinli bombing will attempt to escape or that they have the ability to destroy evidence. The state's perpetrators were released during the first session of the military court. The court also decided to re-examine the evidence of the Şemdinli bombing until the court's next session. It also kindly invited the perpetrators to attend the second session.

Thus, those state organs which were trying to release the suspects from the very beginning, have achieved their end.

The lawyers for the victims left the court, saying they would not be a part of the game, since the military court is under the authority of Büyükanıt, who said of perpetrator Ali Kaya, "I know him; he's a good boy." With this statement, Büyükanıt intervened in the court's decision-making process--a violation of Article 288 of the Turkish Penal Code (attempting to influence the judiciary). Because Büyükanıt is at the top of the military hierarchy under which the court falls, the court will not come to a decision that contradicts Büyükanıt's statement.

Mark my words.

Basically, Büyükanıt's statement, which came immediately following the bombing, is a warning to everyone concerned in the case--including the courts--to keep out of the military's business. The example of Büyükanıt's interference with the judiciary should dispel any fears of democracy breaking out in Turkey and should confirm who it is that holds real power in Turkey.

Interference with judicial proceedings of the Şemdinli bombing case were two of the five concerns Amnesty International had regarding the handling of the case:

Interference in the investigation: After the 9 November bombing, a number of senior government and military officials made comments which Amnesty International regards as constituting direct interference in the course of the investigation of the incident. Among them, the Prime Minister made negative remarks regarding the credibility of witnesses to the incidents in Semdinli testifying on the events, and the Head of the Army publicly gave a positive character reference for one of the suspects. Amnesty International considers that judgements about the reliability of witnesses must be a matter for the court alone, and that discussions of the character of the accused must not be allowed to prejudice the course of the trial.

Amnesty International also notes that the General Chief of Staff [Hilmi Özkök] made laudatory comments about the Head of the Army [Yaşar Büyükanıt], while at the same time being responsible for a decision on whether or not the latter would be subject to an investigation by the military prosecutor on the basis of the information forwarded by the Van prosecutor (see the third concern). The Ministers of Justice and the Interior also commented publicly on the content of statements made by individuals interviewed by the Parliamentary Investigative Commission into the Semdinli incidents. One public official interviewed by the commission was subsequently removed from his position as Head of the Intelligence Bureau of the Security Directorate. Amnesty International is concerned that the Ministers’ comments may have discouraged public officials from sharing information with the Commission and may have contributed to prejudicing the final – and inconclusive – results of the commission’s investigation.

And:

Interference in the prosecution and independence of the judiciary: Shortly after the 92-page indictment had been submitted to the panel of judges at the Van Heavy Penal Court for their approval in early March 2006, the content of the indictment became a subject of intense discussion between the government and the military, with the General Chief of Staff seeking extraordinary meetings with the Prime Minister and the President. Amnesty International considers that on the basis of these actions and public statements made by different parties, the content of the indictment was deemed unacceptable to some senior authorities even before the court – invested with the authority to accept or reject it – had made its decision. Amnesty International considers that the merits or defiencies of an indictment prepared by a prosecutor should be a matter for the court alone to decide, and that the actions of the General Chief of Staff constituted a direct interference in the proper role of the prosecution as well as in the independence of the judiciary.

This should be a cut-and-dried case since the perpetrators were captured by local residents of Şemdinli as they fled the scene of the crime. The vehicle which the perpetrators drove was found to have been registered to Jandarma forces. Among the contents of the trunk were three Kalishnikovs, magazines for the Kalishnikovs, hand grenades, drawings of the bookstore and of Seferi Yılmaz's home. Additionally, an assassination list and ID cards of Pakistani citizens and receipts of the Iraqi Turkmen Front were found in the vehicle. Furthermore, the Şemdinli bombing was only one out of twenty that were carried out in Şemdinli and Yüksekova between July 2005 and 9 November 2005, the day of the Şemdinli bombing--a fact which was ignored in all the reporting about Şemdinli.

Remember the "confessions" of retired Turkish military officers such as Erdal Sarızeybek, and his book I Saw the Betrayal, or Altay Tokat. Both have admitted to committing acts of terror in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan against Kurdish civilians or civil servants.

We also need to recall the words of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the wake of the Şemdinli bombing: "We will follow up on this incident, no matter where it leads, and whoever has to pay the price will pay it." The release of the Şemdinli murderers today is another indicator of the close cooperation between the Islamists and the Paşas which was part of the deal reached by both that resulted in an Islamist resident of Çankaya Köşkü. In return, Büyükanıt's threat regarding the status of his "good boys" is heeded by all and the Paşas are allowed to continue their Dirty War in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan.

Meanwhile, back at Qendil, Murat Karayılan says that AKP Kurds are not Kurds, but you heard it here first. By now AKP's position vis-a-vis the Kurdish people should be clear from the track record it has in dealing with serious issues in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan . . . issues like Şemdinli.

DEEP DENIAL

"The AKP agreed on using the military, from military side and AKP's political side to destroy the Kurdish nation. The AKP is an extremely ambitious political structure. To gain full power, they said ' yes' to destroy Kurdish nation. This will be revealed even more when the time comes."
~ Murat Karayılan.

Abdullah Gül is in deep denial. He refuses to admit that HPG whacked a pack of Bolu commandos:

Sunday’s attack by terrorists that left 13 Turkish soldiers dead was carried out by a splinter group of the terrorist organisation the PKK, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said late Tuesday.

The attack in Sirnak was a result of an individual group within the PKK, Gul said during a visit to the Constitutional Court.

“It was not a collective act but appears to be an individual incident within the organisation,” he said.

The attack by a splinter group suggested that the PKK was in the process of breaking up, Gul said.

I guess Gül's manhood is threatened by the fact that Kurdish gerîlas knocked off a team of monsters that are celebrated for their prowess at murdering civilians and destroying villages. Of course, the more that HPG carries out very successful operations like the Bolu whacking, the more recruitment will spike. Of course, we know that HPG did kill the Bolus, a fact that even American "anti-terror" sites are admitting:

The TMYK [Supreme Anti-Terrorism Board] meeting came two days after the PKK killed 15 Turkish soldiers within 24 hours on October 7-8. Thirteen of the fatalities came on the afternoon of October 7 when a large force of PKK militants ambushed an 18-man Turkish commando unit in the Garbar Mountains in Sirnak province, close to Turkey’s border with Iraq. Three other commandoes were wounded.

HPG posted an update yesterday. In addition, ever since Gül's visit to the Turkish military in The Southeast, intense operations have been carried out, particularly in Şirnex (Şırnak). How, then, do you have a "splinter group" appear in the middle of such operations?

More proof of Gül's being sucked into a vortex of denial were his comments on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee's recognition of the Armenian Genocide:

President Abdullah Gul said the decision was unacceptable and had no validity for Turkey, which has always denied any genocide took place.

[ . . . ]

"This unacceptable decision of the committee, like similar ones in the past, is not regarded by the Turkish people as valid or of any value," Mr Gul said, according to the Anatolian news agency.

If the recognition of the Armenian Genocide has "no validity for Turkey" or is not valid or "of any value," then why do the regime's lackeys foam at the mouth at the mention of it? Why does it go to extraordinary steps of bribing US lawmakers to keep the resolution out of Congress? Why begin massive propaganda campaigns against other countries that pass such resolutions?

Gül needs to get professional help.

The Ankara regime is beginning black operations in Kurdistan's capital, Amed (Diyarbakır). On Wednesday, someone threw a bomb into a tailor's shop in which some police had entered. One police was killed, two wounded, and six other people wounded. The attack occurred around seven in the evening in Sur Municipality on Gazi Street near the Yenikapı.

In the rush to get to the scene of the bombing, a police panzer ran over and crushed a 69-year-old woman.

The likely suspects here are members of TİT (Türk İntikam Tugayı). Last year on 12 September (the anniversary of the 1980 coup), TİT carried out a bombing in Amed which the media also tried to blame on the big, bad PKK. Unfortunately, the morons at TİT briefly posted how they did the blast, complete with photos of the bomb. As soon as Western news sources picked up this information from DozaMe and KurdishInfo, TİT's website was pulled off the Internet and the information denied by the regime.

We should expect to see more black operations conducted by the regime in its frenzy to discredit PKK and justify an intensification of its long-standing policy of genocide.

HELICOPTERS AND HUSH MONEY

"Hush Money. Noun: (Informal) A bribe paid to keep something secret."
~ American Heritage Dictionary.

There was an interesting article on the aftermath of the Beytüşşebap massacre published last Friday by Özgür Gündem, which I had bookmarked in order to point out. Today I noticed a portion of it was translated on Info-Turk. Besides, a friend passed me the information in email, all of which reminded me to post something about it.

The original article has been summarized at Info-Turk as follows:

Former DEP MP Selim Sadak who visited the relatives of the people killed in a massacre in Beytüşşebap said that the families told him that they knew the people who massacred their relatives. Sadak said that peasants told him that it was not done by PKK and the families knew the names of the perpetrators.

Sadak said: “A helicopter approached the crime scene after the incident but it leaves without taking any of the injured. How come there are no bullet shells in the area where 12 people were shot? There were water bottles and food tins on the crime scene? Who were using them? Why were those cleaned afterwards?

The occupants of the helicopter had a good vantage point of the area surrounding the massacre site. If HPG gerîlas had committed the massacre, why didn't the occupants of the helicopter see them and pursue them? Why didn't the helicopter fire at them? Oh, by the way, there is no such thing as an unarmed helicopter in The Southeast.

Selim Sadak added that if the official investigation of the Beytüşşebap massacre were legitimate, the names of the perpetrators would already have been made public. I would add that not only would the names of the murderers be public, the murderers would already be in custody.

Sadak is quoted as referring to other massacres that were committed by the regime and then blamed on PKK, Such as the Gevaş massacre in Wan in 1993 and the more widely known Güçlükonak massacre. Earlier the comparison with Güçlükonak was made on Rastî, and Hevallo has done the same.

The Özgür Gündem article goes on say that with each passing day it becomes clearer that the regime is responsible for the massacre, particularly since Erdoğan and the AKP have offered hush money, overtly and covertly, to the families of the victims. AKP ministers have already visited the families and gave them Erdoğan's money, but the exact amount remains a secret. The state-appointed governor of Şirnex (Şırnak) gave each family 2,000 YTL.

The state which has deprived the Kurdish people since 1923, has created a dire economic situation, has forced Kurds through economic deprivation to take up unofficial military service with the state through the Village Guard system, and has pursued a brutal war against the Kurdish people, now comes to bribe them for their silence.

The very people who have created the economic conditions of extreme poverty in The Region, now pretend to come as economic saviors to twelve individual Kurdish families. Well, after all, it is only hush money.

More questions about the massacre come up than are answered, but these are not appearing in Turkish media. The Beytüşşebap massacre is being buried by the guilty, something that the parliamentary human rights commission will no doubt see too. The only trustworthy one on that commission is Akın Birdal and he is outnumbered by the commission's AKP, MHP, and CHP members. On the bright side, IHD, Mazlum Der, and KESK will conduct their own, joint investigation and their results will be the ones to watch for.

Hevallo is circulating a petition against the Ankara regime's use of cluster bombs against the civilian population of South Kurdistan. Take a look at his post on the matter and sign the appropriate petition. There is one for citizens of the UK and one for all others. Both petitions will be given to the British prime minister.

TURKISH ARMY COMMITS MASSACRE IN BEYTÜŞŞEBAP

"Security forces will intervene with every possible means indiscriminately, including against women and children."
~ R. Tayyip Erdoğan.

From Özgür Gündem:

HPG Headquarters Command issued a statement about the massacre of 12 people, including 7 village guards. HPG said: "The raid on a minibus that was carrying villagers in Beşağaç (Hemkan), village of Beytüşşebap was commited by the extension of the Turkish army, JITEM."

HPG said further that the Turkish army intensified the number of its operations, with every kind of dirty warfare and special warfare tactics, since the first of October 2006, when HPG's unilateral ceasefire went into effect.

The Turkish army implemented 483 operations. In these operations, the Turkish army used chemical weapons and cluster bombs, systematically burned Kurdistan's forests, used civilian vehicles during operations, and committed war crimes in front of the entire world.

It is not a surprise that the Turkish army intensified its operations after the July 22 elections, which shows that the military and AKP agreed on the annihilation of the Kurdish people. Earlier, the Turkish generals made statement: "If you want to drive out terrorism, the best would be to aim at the supporters of the terrorists."

Check an earlier post about TSK starving Kurdish villagers and murdering Kurdish infants, and you'll have an idea of what the Paşas mean when they say they plan to "aim at the supporters." They mean that the entire Kurdish population is their target.

Another indication that the military and AKP agreed, was the recent visit of Abdullah Gül to the region. This visit was played up in the media as Gül's "reaching out" to the Kurdish people. However, the true reason for Gül's visit to The Southeast was to thank the military for accepting his presidency. In return, the Paşas have AKP's blessing for a new Dirty War.

It began with the Şemdinli bombing. Even though Erdoğan stated that the the perpetrators would be pursued to the end, he promised that whoever was responsible, would be punished. AKP did nothing, however, because the trail of the perpetrators led to the top of the Turkish general staff--Yaşar Büyükanıt. The prosecutor Sarıkaya was removed from the bar for his attempt to open an investigation against Büyükanıt. Erdoğan made comments denigrating the credibility of witnesses. Now there will be a retrial in a military court, leaving the fox to guard the henhouse.

Finally, HPG states that the Beytüşşebap massacre was committed by TSK in order to create hatred between the village guards and HPG, in an attempt to marginalize HPG and sway public opinion against the Kurdısh freedom movement. For the last few years village guards have not engaged HPG gerîlas if it were possible to avoid engagements. Some vıllage guards have gone so far as to turn their weapons back over to the state. Tensions between village guards and gerîlas had been greatly reduced.

A number of large operations have taken place in Beytüşşebap since the Dirty War began, the most recent being at least 20 days of fighting around the town of Beytüşşebap. All of these have occured without any comment from the media. However, this massacre did draw media attention. The sudden emphasis on an atrocity in Beytüşşebap is an indication of its importance to the regime as anti-gerîla propaganda. The only ones interested in creating anti-gerîla propaganda is the Ankara regime and its ruling military elite.

Beytüşşebap is famous as the first rebellious Kurdish town in modern Turkish history, with its rebellion taking place in 1924, the year before Şêx Seîd's rebellion.

In related news, Hevallo mentions the resignation of Joseph Ralston as the US "PKK coordinator." Ralston had the chance to force the Ankara regime's hand to accept the ceasefire that went into effect one year ago today. How many lives would have been saved if the ceasefire had been accepted?

Instead, Ralston's legacy to the Kurdish people is the Beytüşşebap massacre in exchange for a couple of business deals. Brilliant job, murderer!

CONFESSIONS AND VIDEO CLIPS

"[U]p to now we have been drawing attention to the illegality, violations, killings and kidnappings in the region. We said, 'the perpetrators are known.' Now it is being admitted."
~ Sezgin Tanrıkulu, President, Amed (Diyarbakır) Bar Association.

There's more on retired colonel Erdal Sarızeybek's confession from Bianet:

"I thought a lot about how I could prevent the terrorists from entering the district town [of Semdinli]. Finally I decided; it was quite a mad plan, but we had no other choice. I finally made my decision and met with Kaymakam Ahmet Bey and Prosecutor Bülent Bey. I told them:

'Honourable Kaymakam and Prosecutor. The situation is very grave. We are surrounded by PKK militants on three sides. It would only take one night for the terrorists to come here [to Semdinli] from Hakurk in the south, from Jerma in the east and from Basyan in the west. If they enter the town, we are face to face with the people and they will suffer. We do not want this. That is why will take this precaution.'

They both answered, 'Alright, Major. We are behind you to the last.'"

Then a major, Saribeyzek had started his duty as a Gendarmerie Border Batallion Commander in 1992.

Sezgin Tanrıkulu, president of the Amed (Diyarbakır) Bar Association, puts his finger on the possible reason why these old TSK officers are now coming out with the stories of their terrorism:

According to Tanrikulu, "Most probably the events he wrote about would have been investigated within the framework of "abuse of position". It is interesting and important that former soldiers wait for enough time to pass before they make such statements, so that the statute of limitations applies and they can be sure to evade punishment."

It is interesting, because "it is an indication of the future. It shows that those doing duty in that area [in the East and South-East] have got a lot to say."

It is important, because "up to now we have been drawing attention to the illegality, violations, killings and kidnappings in the region. We said, 'the perpetrators are known.' Now it is being admitted."

In the meantime, DTP parliamentarian and former IHD head Akın Birdal will bring the case to the TBMM:

Diyarbakir MP Akin Birdal of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) has announced that the case would be taken to the Human Rights Commission of the Parliament. The commission meets on 1 October, the same day that parliament opens. Birdal, who is a former president of the Human Rights Association (IHD), pointed out that human rights activists had long reported on soldiers pretending to be PKK members:

"There were many claims and indicators. It has been said that PKK uniforms were put on, that soldiers introduced themselves as PKK members and raided houses, that they asked people for support in the disguise. If they received help, people were accused of aiding and abetting. If they did not receive help, people were tortured, maltreated or killed."

And Akın Birdal is the one to know since these same types tried to murder him.

In case you've missed the brouhaha, Bianet also has a report about a Turkish nationalist singer from the Black Sea region, Ismail Türüt, who's taking the heat for a Youtube clip of one of his songs. Not that I could possibly squeeze out a tear for him, since he and his sidekick lyricist are glorified thugs who go around praising other glorified thugs.

Supposedly the person who made the clip of Türüt's song is a university student who had "no political aim." Oh, sure. I know I believe him:

University student Hakan Öztekin said that he had prepared the clip without any political aim: "I saw another clip with this song from Ismail Türüt, whose fan I am, on YouTube. I took random pictures related to Samsun from the Internet and randomly put them together with the song. I did not know that this would make such waves."

This defense seems rather unconvincing, as the "random pictures related to Samsun" were pictures of Hrant Dink's body and the murder suspects.

The Bianet report goes on to say that Öztekin's clip had been yanked from Youtube, but you can still find plenty of others that are similar. If interested in seeing what it's all about, go to Youtube and do a search for "Ismail Türüt".

Uh, but you can't do that from Turkey because Youtube's been banned again.

It's ironic. You can post oodles of video clips with Ismail Türüt's nationalist song accompanied with photos of Hrant Dink's body, and his murderers shown as national heroes. But you can't post videos of Mustafa Kemal, R. Tayyip Erdoğan, or Abdullah Gül wearing pink tutus and lip-synching to "Material Girl."

THE REAL TERRORISTS

"These enemies of humanity who believe that the state authority has weakened and turned their guns on our innocent citizens will definitely drown in the hole that they have fallen into."
~ Turkish PM Tansu Çiller on the Güçlükonak Massacre.

For all those who believe that PKK has been the source of all evil in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan and that PKK has been the source of "terrorism," Milliyet has one for you:

Erdal Sarızeybek, a retired TSK colonel, confessed several military secrets in his latest book called, I Saw the Betrayal.

In the book, Sarızeybek talks about how TSK created a fighting environment with the excuse of protecting the people in 1992, in Semdinli. He confesses "the crazy things we did for the war on terrorism."

"We fired with Rockets":

"My plan was like this: Within two or three nights, 120mm artillery and flares would be shot in the downtown (of Semdinli). We would shoot at the targets that we had installed earlier, and then we started shooting rockets and created a complete fighting environment. On the morning of the next day, we would assemble all the people downtown and warn them about how how wounded the people would get in a possible war and, for that reason, they should not allow "terrorists" to come into the city.

"At least once a week this became routine in Semdinli and for a long time it continued. Maybe you will call this craziness, but we did get results. We prevented the injury of people and the rest is not important."

The retired colonel, Erdal Sarızeybek, also confessed that TSK had formed several teams of soldiers with beards and dressed them like PKK. Sarizeybek says:

"The nation was burning. There wasn't a day without operations. I can confess that, once, we were in a desperate situation. We did several things. For instance, we formed some teams among the soldiers who had beards and we dressed them in PKK clothing. We put them on the roads at night in order to secure the region. For convoy security, we walked hundreds of troops at night in critical places in order to secure the area."

This confession calls to mind the confession last year by Lieutenant General Altay Tokat, when he said he also engaged in terrorism to knock a little nervousness into those who weren't sufficiently so:

"In my time, I also had them throw a few bombs to some critical points. These were empty places! My issue was to give a message. Civil servants, judges that come from the West [of Turkey] don't understand the seriousness of the situation... when things became calmer, they started to take this business nor seriously... One [act of] disaster is better than a thousand words of advice. In consequence I had [bombs] thrown at two places close to their houses. One [act of] disaster is better than a thousand words of advice. After that they understood that they needed to be careful. This way I educated them. You can't immediately evaluate this by saying throwing bombs is illegal. I might have saved the lives of those people. I did not tell them either. Now if you construe this as assassination, I'll laugh at that."

We also have the example of the Güçlükonak massacre and the Hantepe massacre, to name two.

And it was the same ones who murdered Musa Anter that also did the Hantepe massacre.

Now tell me again: Who are the real terrorists?

ASSASSINS TRAINED IN ISTANBUL

"I don't know why you are treating me like this. The only thing I have done is carry a pistol into a movie."
~ Lee Harvey Oswald.

More on Turkey's meddling in South Kurdistan . . .

Zanetî has an excellent summary of Turkish involvement with the recent murder of 525 Yezîdî Kurds in Şengal, near the Syrian border, on 15 August. The president of South Kurdistan, Mesûd Barzanî, went so far as to call out Turkey and Syria for their cooperation with Sunni Arabs against the Kurdish people.

Now Özgür Gündem has an article describing the training of Turkmen assassins and their operations in South Kurdistan. According to Özgür Gündem, an ex-assassin, Muhammet Sait Ali, confessed some important information regarding the murder of the 525 Yezîdî Kurds in Şengal.

Sait Ali was caught in Kerkuk,where he confessed that he was trained in Istanbul, at the police station headquarters in Vatan Street. Iraq's regional neighbors--Syria, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt--even though they have their own disagreements over many matters, come together easily to cooperate against the Kurds.

The most recent example of this is their cooperation against the Kerkuk Referendum. In order to suffocate the Kurdish movement and to sabotage the Kerkuk Referendum, they have organized several suicide attacks against Mûsil, Kerkuk, Maxmur, and Hewlêr. The groups that attacked as suicide bombers were trained in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and are financially supported by them.

Now, we can add Turkey to the list of suicide bomb trainers in addition to its well-earned reputation as a state-sponsor of terror.

According to Sait Ali, an ethnic Turkmen, Turkish MİT trained 44 Turkmen as assassins at the Vatan police headquarters. It was these who were sent to ply their new trade in South Kurdistan. According to the documents received, 12 of the Turkmen assassins were sent to Kerkuk, 8 to Hewlêr, 4 to Silêmanî, and 20 to Baghdad. As Sait Ali stated:

"On 19 February 2006, they sent me to Ankara, and on the second day they sent me to Istanbul. They gave me the nickname of "Zeki." We were 44 people. MIT gave us assassination training. We didn't know each other. They took us to a building in Vatan Street, and gave us sniper and handgun training."

According to Ali, retired generals trained them:

"We were 44 guys and everyone had a nickname so that no one knew who the other was. However, it was obvious that the people who were training us were very knowledgeable and sufficient people. The training was given on behalf of MIT, but it wasn't official. They told us to get trained very well, but after leaving the building, to forget about all the people we had met. They warned us not to reveal their identities."

A Canadian passport was found on Sait Ali's person when he was detained in Kerkuk. He also carried several letters with him that had been sent from Syria. According to the letters, Turkey and Syria are cooperating in order to create chaos in South Kurdistan. Ali says that Syria has an enormous influence on ex-Ba'ath supporters and trained the Ba'ath Arabs, while Turkey trained Turkmen, so that both Syria and Turkey could enhance their intelligence web.

In addition, Sait Ali mentioned that arms supplies come from Turkey and Syria. Syria is making things easier for Turkey to operate in South Kurdistan by using its influence over Sunni Arabs in Kerkuk and Mûsil. That's why the Turkish intelligence agents that staff the so-called Turkish "consulate" in Mûsil are able to move about freely in extremely dangerous areas, while residents of all ethnicities must take extreme care to move about in the city and surrounding areas.

Turkey is supplying arms to the intelligence staff in Iraq through Syria and Iran, either transported by train or in large trucks--which reminds us of the train that had been derailed by HPG gerilas at the end of May. There are links to HPG's derailing operation in yesterday's post.

As Sait Ali said:

"We get most of our arms from ex-Ba'athist or Turkmen parties, and they help us."

It kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it, where the propaganda is coming from that supplies Arab bloggers with wild suppositions such as the one that blames "Kurdish warlords" of being the masterminds behind the murder of the Şengal Yezîdîs. Meanwhile, Yezîdîs themselves know that the attack was the work of those who don't want stability in the region and don't want Kurds to have any kind of freedom.

Don't forget to check Hevallo. He has some photos of Kurdish refugees fleeing Iranian bombs and invasion, as well as a video of life among HPG/YJA-STAR gerîlas. That video clip comes from a longer documentary that had been available on Google last year, until it was "disappeared."