[lbo-talk] Turkish Hizbullah

[Michael Pugliese]

http://www.juancole.com/2003_11_01_juancole_archive.html#106936473298
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"The Turkish Hizbullah originated in the radical Kurdish struggles
of Eastern Anatolia. Its leader was a classmate of Abdullah Ocalan
of the Marxist militia/party, the PKK, which carried out terrorist
attacks especially in southeastern Turkey. Some of its members were
also former PKK. But Hizbullah aimed at establishing an Islamist
state instead, and for a while mainly targetted the PKK. There are
rumors that it received Turkish government support in this bloody
campaign of assassination. Then it turned against the Turkish
government, especially as the PKK subsided. See for background the
Al-Ahram Weekly piece by Gareth Jenkins from a couple of years ago.

See also the Human Rights Watch report on Hizbullah. It appears that
the Istanbul bombings may be yet another instance of blowback, where
anti-communist religious movements promoted by rightwing governments
ultimately became major threats in their own right."

-- 
Michael Pugliese