U.S. Consulate attacked in Istanbul, Turkey. AP

The U.S. Consulate building in Istanbul, Turkey. Yahoo/AP.

The U.S. Consulate came under attack by far left Kurdish fighters as the situation in Turkey deteriorates. AP. The two attackers, both women, opened fire on the Consulate and were engaged by security forces. The security forces captured one of the women, a 51 year old named Hatice Asik, while the other one is still on the run. Asik is a member of the communist group Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front, also known as the DHKP-C. Violence rocked the country, as another attack occurred at a Istanbul police station. A suicide bomber exploded and injured 10 people. The scene of the bombing was then attacked by unknown assailants. In the south of the country, a car bomb killed four police officers while an attack on a helicopter killed a conscript. The current wave of violence started after the Turks cracked down on the Kurds arresting 1300 people. Some of those people were affiliated with ISIS but many of them were Kurds. Turkey also joined the war against ISIS and have allowed the United States to use bases in Turkey. 

My Comment:

I've got mixed feelings on this one. I'm partially ethnically Greek and I have no love for the Turks. Indeed, the only reason I called Constantinople "Istanbul" is to prevent confusion. I wouldn't mind the whole country collapsing and for Greece to take back what they lost during the Greek Genocide... On the other hand, I really, really don't like communists and it's been clear to me for some time that there are a lot of Kurdish groups that either lean that way or are explicitly communists. In short, I don't like any of the players in this current drama. 

It's clear that Turkey's entry into the Syrian and Iraqi civil war was largely a ruse. The Kurds were always the ones they wanted to target. ISIS was just an excuse. Allowing the United States to use their airbase to attack ISIS was to get U.S. officials to look the other way as they crackdown on the Kurds. It was a mistake for the the United States to allow this and will probably have consequences down the road. Right now, it was basically luck and the incompetence of the attackers that spared American lives from being lost. 

It's not surprising to me that the Kurds are fighting back. Given that these communist groups in Turkey are one of the few secular groups to use suicide bombing this could get very ugly very quickly. The DHKP-C have pulled off some terror attacks recently, including a hostage situation that ended in bloodshed. I guess I should point out that the DKHP-C and the PKK are not the only group fighting against the Turks and not all of these groups are communists, but enough of them are that I don't really see the need to support the Kurds all that much, even if they are fighting against the Turks. 

I'm not really all that surprised that the attackers were women. For all the criticism you can level at these Kurdish revolutionary groups, sexism isn't one of them. They will allow their women to fight in the military and conduct terrorists operations. Sure, ISIS and other Islamic groups occasionally use women as suicide bombers, they really don't treat women as equals. The Kurdish communists groups do, which is about the only nice thing I will say about them. That may be more of a Kurdish cultural thing because even the more mainstream groups believe in equality between the sexes. 

The major question that nobody is asking is what happens to the Americans fighting with the Kurds in Syria? Though these Americans are fighting with the YPG groups, who aren't explicitly communists, they are working with people who work with groups like PKK and the DKHP-C. These Americans aren't fighting against Turkey, but their status is now uncertain since Turkey is attacking quite a few different Kurdish groups. At the very least they are fighting with a group of people that have connections to people that are currently at war with a NATO ally. 

If I was one of the Americans fighting in Syria right now, I would seriously consider getting out now while the getting is good. I am guessing Turkey will take a dim view of any American fighting with the YPG now that relations with the Kurds are in the toilet. And there is always a chance that Turks could expand their war to include the YPG, which would put American lives at risk. If the Turks were to do so and killed an American fighting ISIS, then there could be a huge international incident. My advice to any fighters in Syria right now? Don't be that incident.