Dhaka, Istanbul, Fallujah - mapping a caliphate of Islamic State terror

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Dhaka, Istanbul, Fallujah - mapping a caliphate of Islamic State terror

By Paul McGeough
Updated

Washington: It's a long way from the Turkish city of Istanbul to Fallujah in the west of Iraq or to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh – but in the dark geography of Islamic State, the three are strongly connected.

Tuesday's triple suicide-bomb assault on Ataturk Airport, one of the world's busiest and a symbol of Turkey's faltering economic and regional ambitions, is assumed to be the work of the so-called Islamic State, and IS is claiming the butchery in a Dhaka restaurant on Saturday – the latest attacks in an expansive global terror campaign, as the turf that is the Islamist movement's supposed caliphate shrinks, most notably with this week's liberation of the Iraqi city of Fallujah by US-backed Iraqi forces.

The impending loss of Fallujah meant that IS needed to make a powerful statement to the world on the reach of its terrorism – yes, it was losing significant turf and the whole caliphate thing was starting to look a bit shaky; but, as it had already demonstrated in Paris and Brussels, terror strikes beyond the immediate theatre of its war would mark out a virtual caliphate. Dhaka is a blood-soaked exclamation point.

There would have to be a significant price for the loss of Fallujah – which by the reckoning of IS, is elevated to a greater significance than might be suggested by its drab, dusty buildings and farmers' fields clinging to a ribbon of river in the Iraqi desert.

Iraqi counter-terrorism forces patrol Fallujah, Iraq on Monday, June 27.

Iraqi counter-terrorism forces patrol Fallujah, Iraq on Monday, June 27.Credit: AP

These days IS headquarters is Raqqa, a remote city in Syria's east.

But Fallujah is holy ground for IS. That's where it all started – a Sunni stronghold just a 30-minute drive west of Baghdad, which after the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003 became a hotbed of Sunni resistance that gave rise to al-Qaeda in Iraq and its many subsequent forms: Islamic State in Iraq; Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant [ISIL or ISIS]; and later, the simplified Islamic State [IS], which in Arabic is referred to as Daesh.

The hand of IS is assumed, rather than stated, in the Istanbul attack because Turkey is a blank in the movement's twisted protocol when it comes to a bloodbath. Usually quick to claim credit, when it comes to attacks on Turkish territory IS drops hints but never accepts liability.

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"If IS is indeed behind this attack, this would be a declaration of war," Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told The Washington Post. "This attack is different in scope, impact and the death of dozens in the heart of the country's economic capital ... [Erdogan] cannot afford to let this go."

Passengers embrace as they wait outside Istanbul's Ataturk airport, following their evacuation after the attack.

Passengers embrace as they wait outside Istanbul's Ataturk airport, following their evacuation after the attack.Credit: AP

In Dhaka, at least 20 hostages are confirmed dead in an 11-hour siege that ended when Bangladeshi security forces stormed the up-market Holey Artisan Bakery, killing six of the gunmen who had hacked the mainly foreign breakfast patrons to death and capturing a seventh alive.

IS claimed the attack almost immediately.

Iraqi security forces in Fallujah on June 26 after defeating Islamic State militants.

Iraqi security forces in Fallujah on June 26 after defeating Islamic State militants. Credit: AP

"Islamic State commandos attack a restaurant frequented by foreigners in the city of Dhaka in Bangladesh," according to a news link associated with IS, which also posted photographs of what purported to be the bodies of foreigners who had been killed – apparently transmitted to IS from the restaurant.

The Istanbul terror strike, in which 43 people died and more than 230 were injured in one of the most secure airports in the world, dominated what has been a strange, calculating week for Erdogan:

Photographs of victims of the Istanbul attack at a memorial at Ataturk Airport.

Photographs of victims of the Istanbul attack at a memorial at Ataturk Airport.Credit: AP

There's a bit of history here – recent and not so recent.

Istanbul's airport is named in memory of the founder of the modern, secular Turkish state – Mustafa Kemal "Ataturk", who dissolved the Ottoman caliphate in 1924. Islamic State has declared its territory in Syria and Iraq as the start of a new caliphate that would take in Turkey and the rest of the region; and in the reckoning of some observers, Erdogan is possessed by similar ambitions, seeing himself as a leader of the entire region.

A busy week in diplomacy for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

A busy week in diplomacy for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Credit: AP

But in the carve-up of the Ottoman Empire, its substantial Kurdish population was fractured as new borders delineated Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Armenia.

Today, the Kurds are estimated to number up to 32 million and to varying degrees - with the paranoia running highest in Turkey - any development that might lead to autonomy for the Kurdish enclave in any of the five countries is perceived by the others as a national security threat.

Demonstrators chant pro-IS slogans in the Iraqi city of Mosul, which Iraqi forces have promised to retake by the end of the year.

Demonstrators chant pro-IS slogans in the Iraqi city of Mosul, which Iraqi forces have promised to retake by the end of the year.Credit: AP

The Kurds in Iraq have achieved a substantial degree of autonomy. And through the five-year course of the conflict in Syria, that country's Kurdish communities have been carving out their own autonomous territory – and earning chits on which they expect Washington to pay at a later date, by providing some of the only seriously capable fighters for the US-led war on IS.

And that was the basis for Erdogan's dirty deal with IS.

A PKK fighter in a house in the south-eastern Turkish city of Nusaybin in February.

A PKK fighter in a house in the south-eastern Turkish city of Nusaybin in February.Credit: Getty Images

In any other circumstance, IS would have been thrilled to have a NATO member – which Turkey is – positioned like a sitting duck on the periphery of its Iraqi-Syrian war zone.

But IS was more thrilled to have Turkish authorities turn a blind eye to its use of their airports and roads as a jihadists' highway for thousands of foreign volunteers travelling to Syria.

Ejnad Akkad, a fighter for the rebel Free Syrian Army, at a hospital in Kilis, Turkey.

Ejnad Akkad, a fighter for the rebel Free Syrian Army, at a hospital in Kilis, Turkey.Credit: AP

The Erdogan rationale was that if IS was fighting Syria's Kurdish community, then the Turkish leader was happy to serve as a doormat. Further, in miscalculating that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad would be a pushover, Erdogan was happy for fighters who might take him down to traipse through Turkey.

The border region became a combat commerce zone – fighters coming and going; weapons and supplies into Syria; and oil smuggled out through Turkey. One news report described it as "a rear base, a transit hub and a shopping bazaar for the Islamic State".

Turkish artillery fire from the border near the town of Kilis towards northern Syria in February.

Turkish artillery fire from the border near the town of Kilis towards northern Syria in February.Credit: AP

The border region is also thought to be home to a good number of IS foreign fighters, any number of whom can be activated for attacks on Turkish targets as needed; which is why, some analysts speculate, IS does not claim responsibility for its attacks in Turkey – it's one thing to "stir up paranoia and fear in Turkey", says Aymenn al-Tamimi, who blogs on IS, but not to the point of provoking Erdogan to disrupt the infrastructure on which IS still depends in Turkey.

However in 2015, as the Syrian crisis became intractable and Turkey's regional horizons shrank, Erdogan flipped – giving the US access to the Incirlik air base and flying its own missions against IS [and at the same time, using them as cover for attacks on Kurdish forces]; rounding up and deporting suspected Islamist fighters, but holding out on other US demands in the hope that Washington would abandon Syria's Kurds.

An official sits in Ataturk Airport in Istanbul ahead of a memorial event on June 30.

An official sits in Ataturk Airport in Istanbul ahead of a memorial event on June 30.Credit: AP

In the last year in Turkey, more than 670 people have died and more than 1700 have been wounded in a total of 434 attacks– five of which are attributed to IS and most of the rest to Kurdish separatists.

Analysts expect more such attacks in and beyond the region as IS changes gears – in the last 18 months it has lost about half of its Iraqi territory and maybe 20 per cent of what it had in Syria, there's been a fall-off in the arrival of volunteers and its key supply lines are under intensifying military pressure from the US-led coalition and others that are in the fight in Syria and Iraq.

A member of Bangladeshi security personnel is taken for medical attention after gunmen attacked a restaurant  in a diplomatic zone of the country's capital Dhaka.

A member of Bangladeshi security personnel is taken for medical attention after gunmen attacked a restaurant in a diplomatic zone of the country's capital Dhaka.Credit: AP

To compensate, Western intelligence officials conclude, IS is well into a brutal strategic overhaul – the territorial caliphate it wanted has become less important than marauding attacks across the globe, in the manner of its erstwhile rivals al-Qaeda.

Fallujah was a significant centre for IS, but holding it required the ongoing support of local Sunni fighters who very likely, as the military noose tightened in the course of the last month, made the same decision that the Sunni tribal sheikhs made back in 2003 – just as they decided that Saddam Hussein was not worth fighting for, neither was IS worth dying for in Fallujah.

In Islamic State's sights: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with his US counterpart Barack Obama on the cover of the IS magazine <i>Dabiq</i> in August.

In Islamic State's sights: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with his US counterpart Barack Obama on the cover of the IS magazine Dabiq in August.

It doesn't mean that the Sunnis suddenly support the Shiite-dominated government that presides over gridlock in Baghdad – more likely, that they will find other methods and allies to settle their scores.

The loss of Fallujah leaves IS with just one very significant stronghold in Iraq – the northern city of Mosul. And while the Iraqi security forces proved more competent in taking Fallujah than they did in the recent recapture of Ramadi, to the west of Fallujah, and in their abandonment of Mosul in 2014, it remains to be seen if they are up to the task of taking back Mosul.

There are reports of gross human rights abuses in Fallujah by Shiite militias who disguised themselves in police and military uniforms to enter the city against the wishes of the US and Sunni community leaders. And liberated Fallujah is a new challenge for the Baghdad government – there's little food and water for tens of thousands of civilians who are stranded in the desert with no shelter and in daytime temperatures that soar to 50 degrees Celsius.

In a recent online column, former US ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker cautioned that contrary to bringing a lasting peace, the liberation of Fallujah would more likely worsen the sectarian conflict in Iraq because of the dominant role in the country of neighbouring Iran, the region's Shiite superpower: "The Iranians and their proxies dominate the political arena as they do the battle space, and there will be no outreach to Sunnis".

Everything in the regional conflict is interconnected – no bread being baked in Fallujah; blood being spilled in Istanbul … and everywhere there is fickle, self-serving leadership that makes any resolution a dim prospect.

Erdogan faces challenges – coping with a wave of millions of migrants on the move because of the conflict in Syria and Iraq; and a brutal internal conflict with Turkey's Kurds, which he is accused of stoking.

Appraising the security environment this week, Istanbul-based commentator Mustafa Akyol writes: "[It's] the result of the president's rigid, divisive and combative policies. He has picked fights with our neighbours and tried to crush his opponents at home."

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