Turkish police at the scene of the shooting. Yahoo/Reuters.
Violence in Turkey is increasing as militants attack a palace and set off a bomb that killed 8 soldiers. Reuters. Two men armed with rifles and grenades and affiliated with the Kurdish Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), opened fire Dolmabache palace, home of the Prime Minster's office in Istanbul. Other Kurdish militants affiliated with the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) set off a roadside bomb in Siirt province which killed 8 soldiers. Turkey sent in F-16 strikes at PKK buildings near the border of Iraq. Turkey is having political difficulty as well. They have been unable to form a government due to political opposition to the party of Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan.
My Comment:
Looks like yet another middle eastern country is spiraling out of control. Turkey escalated this war by their own choice and now they are paying the price. The PPK and DHKP-C weren't particularly active until Turkey led their massive raid that captured hundreds of Kurdish and Islamist militants. There was no way that doing so wasn't going to set off a war.
And it is very clear that Turkey's so called war on ISIS was nothing but smoke and mirrors to distract from their actual goal of hitting the Kurds. Other then a few airstrikes and arrests Turkey is doing little to nothing against ISIS targets in Syria. The biggest contribution to the war against ISIS is the fact that they are letting America use an airbase to strike ISIS. Otherwise the U.S. government got played and played hard.
But they may end up having to deal with ISIS anyways. ISIS is like a disease that pops up and kills you because another disease has hurt your immune system. And like Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, ISIS may now show up in Turkey because of the chaos between the Turks and the Kurds. There is an opening here for ISIS to exploit and given that the article said that ISIS just released a video saying that the Turks should rise up against their government, it looks like ISIS is going to try.
As for Turkey itself it sounds like they are having serious government problems. Tayyip Erdogan's party has been unable to form a government with the various minor parties. That's a huge problem during peacetime, but during war it's devastating. Erdogan has quite a bit of power on his own, but without a functioning government, he doesn't have legitimacy. He can fight the war effectively, but the people will be unhappy. And unhappy people tend to kick out leaders. This might be the beginning of the the end for Erdogan's presidency.
As for the Kurds, I still don't feel all that sorry for them. As always, I have little respect for communists and the DHKP-C are explicit communists and the PKK aren't much better. That being said, at least they are fighting ISIS. As a matter of fact, a large reason for the current troubles is because the Turks refused to help the Kurds in Iraq and Syria fight ISIS. As much as I hate ISIS, I think Turkey was right to avoid giving the Kurds weapons given the fact that the groups were far leftist terrorist groups. Sure they Syrian and Iraqi Kurds aren't as politically extreme as the Turkish Kurds, but they are more likely to stick with their ethnic allies then anyone else.
Like I mentioned in my post about the bombing in Thailand, these kinds of attacks have a major impact on tourism. Though Turkey isn't quite as dependent on tourism as Thailand is, this is still going to effect them. From what I understand, the palace that was attacked was a major tourist attraction in Turkey. I've often wanted to visit Istanbul (or Constantinople) myself, but I don't think I would do it now given how high the tensions are.
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