BEIRUT // After a gunman murdered 39 people at a nightclub on the banks of the Bosphorus in the first hours of 2017, ISIL did something out of character: it claimed the attack.
ISIL regularly takes credit for attacks across the world. But in Turkey, right next door to its self-proclaimed caliphate and in a country where the group is extremely active, things work a little differently.
Despite being implicated in other major attacks, including an assault on Istanbul's Ataturk airport in June and a number of suicide bombings this past year, the January 1 massacre at the Reina nightclub stands alone as the only mass-casualty attack against civilians that ISIL has admitted to carrying out.
For much of the group's existence, ISIL and Turkey have seemed afraid of provoking one another, with ISIL deliberately leaving its name off attacks for which it was, in fact, responsible.
For years, ISIL had relatively open access via Turkey to its territory in Syria, with the Turkish government doing little to stem the flow of arms and foreign fighters constantly streaming across its southern border. Turkey's inability or unwillingness to crack down on ISIL and seal its border allowed the group to grow and prosper. For foreign sympathisers dreaming of joining the group, membership was often just a flight or two and a bus ride away. As fighters continued to flow through its territory, Ankara appeared fearful that any concerted effort to shut down ISIL would bring unwelcome instability home.
ISIL saw they had a good thing going. Without a porous border like the one between Turkey and Syria, the group would never have reached such heights as they did. Openly attacking Turkey would produce a new front in their war, potentially dissuade sympathetic Turks from joining or supporting them and cut off ISIL's access to the world. So the group tried to exercise self-restraint.
Turkey remained a fair target in the eyes of many in the group though, and attacks came nonetheless - though ISIL made sure never to claim any association with them.
Some, such as a July 2015 bombing against Kurdish activists in the border town of Suruc and an October bombing of a Kurdish party's march in Ankara, appeared aimed at stoking ethnic tensions between the Turkish government and Kurdish separatists in a bid to wreak havoc in Turkey and keep Ankara too distracted to pay attention to ISIL. Others appeared to target Turkey's lucrative tourism industry, again with the apparent aim of weakening and distracting the state. Attacks occurred, but they were extremely selective with their targets and seemed to be aimed more at sowing confusion and distrust in Turkey than landing ISIL in an open war.
But these days, it is more likely that ISIL's view is that there is nothing to lose by openly attacking Turkey.
In late August, Turkey intervened militarily in Syria's conflict, backing rebel proxies to fight ISIL and the Kurdish YPG militia along Syria's border with Turkey. In less than two weeks, ISIL lost all of its territory along the border, leaving the group cut off from the outside world, supplies and additional fighters.
With Turkey now confronting ISIL head on, there is little reason for the extremists to hold back.
Since the Turkish intervention in Syria, ISIL has been increasingly bold. In November, the group claimed its first attack against the Turkish government inside Turkey's borders when it said it was responsible for a car bombing at a police station in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir. Previously, the group had claimed only killings of Syrian activists in Turkey.
Then in December, ISIL released a gruesome video of its fighters burning alive two captured Turkish soldiers in Syria.
Today, ISIL has no qualms about provoking Turkey, aware that the days when the extremist group and Ankara skirted around each other are now over as Turkish-backed forces continue to make gains in Syria. More attacks carried out by ISIL and its sympathisers - alongside claims of responsibility - are to be expected.
jwood@thenational.ae
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3Novices Europe
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