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Kurdish-Hizbullah or Turkish-Hizbullah is a Kurdish Islamic (Sunni) extremist organization that arose in the late 1980s in response to Kurdistan Workers Party atrocities against Muslims in southeastern Turkey, where Kurdish-Hizbullah seeks to establish an independent Islamic state.


Activities

Beginning in the mid-1990s, Kurdish-Hizbullah, which is unrelated to Lebanon Hizballah, expanded its target base and modus operandi from killing Kurdistan Workers Party militants to conducting low-level bombings against liquor stores, bordellos, and other establishments that the organization considered “anti-Islamic.” In January 2000, Turkish security forces killed Huseyin Velioglu, the leader of Kurdish-Hizbullah, in a shootout at a safehouse in Istanbul. The incident sparked a yearlong series of counterterrorist operations against the group that resulted in the detention of some 2,000 individuals; authorities arrested several hundred of those on criminal charges. At the same time, police recovered nearly 70 bodies of Turkish and Kurdish businessmen and journalists that Kurdish-Hizbullah had tortured and brutally murdered during the mid-to-late 1990s. The group began targeting official Turkish interests in January 2001, when its operatives assassinated the Diyarbakır police chief in the group’s most sophisticated operation to date. Kurdish-Hizbullah did not conduct a major operation in 2002.


Strength

17.000 to 20.000 members


Location/Area of Operation

Turkey, primarily the Diyarbakir region of southeastern Turkey.


Ideology and Differences

Turkish Hizballah has no official organic ties with either the Lebanon-based Islamist group also named Hizballah or its offshoots throughout the Middle East. Notwithstanding a few similarities in terms of ideology, methods and goals, they are essentially very distinct terrorist groups.

Officially backed by Iran, the Lebanese group known as Hizballah seeks to reestablish the supremacy of Islam in the political and socio-economic life of the Muslim world. Hence, as indicated by the political manifesto of the group, its goals are mainly to eradicate any western influence from Lebanon and the Middle East in general, as well as to liberate Palestinian territories and Jerusalem from Israeli occupation.

The ultimate purpose underlying Hizballah’s actions in Lebanon is to establish a radical Shia (or Shiite) Islamist theocracy in that country. Lebanon’s Hizballah is indeed based on Shia ideology, whereas Turkey’s Hizballah is predominantly rooted in Sunni Islam. Besides, in Lebanese Hizballah, the spiritual leader assumes an important function in terms of motivating his members along the lines of the Shiite writings. This responsibility is apparently not as primordial for Turkish Hizballah, as notably evidenced within the Ilimciler group when Huseyin Velioglu served as political and spiritual leader despite his weak religious background or training (which actually led Fidan Gungor, the leader of the Menzilciler group, to claim Velioglu was incapable of leading his group).

Lebanon’s Hizballah has been active not only in Lebanon, but also throughout Europe, North America, South America and Africa. The terrorist group has resorted to various tactics, including car bombings, kidnappings and hijackings, primarily targeting western and Jewish interests. Turkish Hizballah, on the contrary, has not perpetrated attacks outside of Turkey, which is also why it is not technically or officially considered an international terrorism organization. In terms of affiliation with other terrorist organizations, the main difference between the two groups lies in the fact that Lebanon’s Hizballah has served as an umbrella organization for such terrorist groups as Hamas. Turkey’s Hizballah, on the other hand, has only had very limited relationships with such groups. In addition, Turkey’s Hizballah does not strive to be legitimized, whereas Lebanon’s Hizballah has become a major part of Lebanese politics. As such, the Lebanese Hizballah has been struggling for the liberation of southern Lebanon from Israeli occupation for years. Furthermore, it has carried out social activities to support social, economic and educational life of the Shiite community. It thus functions like a de facto government for the Shiite people of southern Lebanon. In contrast, the functions of Turkish Hizballah are strictly limited to a very secret group that has nothing to do with everyday life in the community. The main purpose of Turkey’s Party of God is to establish a religious-based government by overthrowing the existing secular government.

Moreover, Lebanon’s Hizballah pioneered suicide bombings in the Middle East, another important characteristic that differentiate it from its Turkish homonym. The Lebanese group is responsible for the wave of suicide terrorism that started in April 1983 when a truck laden with explosives was driven into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 49 and wounding about 120 people. The goals of Hizballah suicide operations evolved over time as the group gained notoriety at the local and international levels and became a role model for and supporter of several other terrorist organizations. The group and its Iranian benefactors used suicide terrorism as a propaganda tool for the dissemination of the precepts of the Islamic revolution throughout the Middle East. Foreign UN peacekeeping forces eventually had to leave Lebanon and the Israeli army also retreated from central Lebanon to a restricted strip further south. Hizballah further used suicide terrorism as an instrument of deterrence and reprisal against Israel. The use of suicide attacks as a primary method of operation has now declined to one attack per year or less, but the overall success of Hizballah has been observable even outside of Lebanon, where the terrorist group inspired and occasionally sponsored several other terrorist entities.

According to a U.S. Department of State report, ‘Turkish Hizballah is a domestic terrorist group of mostly Kurdish Sunni Islamists with no known ties to Lebanese Hizballah. Turkish officials and media assert that Turkish Hizballah has received limited Iranian support.’16 Turkish Hizballah, also known in Iraqi Kurdistan as the Kurdish Revolutionary Hizballah (Hisbullahi Kurdi Shorishger), is thus composed of Kurds, a large ethnic group that is predominantly Sunni Muslim and concentrated in the mountainous regions of the border area between Turkey, Iran and Iraq. The ‘network is alleged to be responsible for numerous assassinations and disappearances over the past decade, including a number of high-profile terrorist incidents. . . . 1999 estimates suggested that Hizbullah may have as many as 25,000 adherents, including 4,000 armed militants.’17 Hizballah members are economically and socially alienated from mainstream society: they typically come from low-income families and half of them are not steadily employed, which reflects the situation of the Turkish socio-economic crisis. More importantly, one fourth do not have any kind of education and about a third of the members only have an elementary-school-level education.18

Based in southeastern Anatolia, Turkish Hizballah originally operated mainly in the cities of Diyarbakir, Van, Batman and Mardin. Members of the terrorist group habitually gathered in and around bookstores, where they discussed their ideologies and spread their propaganda. According to official reports, the founding members of Turkish Hizballah initially gathered at one bookstore, Vahdet, but they were never able to form a homogenous group. Due to ideological divergences and leadership disputes, Turkish Hizballah separated into two major groups: Ilimciler (Scientists) and Menzilciler (Rangers). The Ilimciler, led by Huseyin Velioglu, met at the Ilim Bookstore, whereas the Menzilciler, led by Fidan Gungor, congregated at the Menzil bookstore. Beside leadership struggle, the two factions were opposed in the tactics they used to accomplish the goal of the terrorist organization. While the Ilimciler defended armed struggle and comprised Hizballah’s most brutal factions, the Menzilciler believed it was too early for such radical action and opposed, for instance, attacks on suspected PKK-KONGRA GEL members.20 An intra-group struggle stemmed from the battle for leadership and caused the death of over a hundred people on both sides. In 1994, the assassination of Menzilciler leader Fidan Gungor by Ilimciler members almost obliterated the dispute between Ilimciler and Menzilciler, but the truce was short-lived and the factions remain opposed to this day.

In the late 1990s, Hizballah attempted to widen its area of operation to cities in the western part of Turkey, especially Istanbul. The ongoing conflict between Hizballah and PKK-KONGRA GEL in southeastern Turkey was the major impetus for the shift. Still, western cities like Istanbul did not prove to be as favorable an environment as southeastern cities had been (e.g., Diyarbakir, Van, or Mardin) for the development of Hizballah. The efforts of the group were seriously curbed as major operations were carried out against Hizballah cells in and around Istanbul in early 2000, one of which led to the killing of Huseyin Velioglu, the Ilimciler group leader, and the arrest of his two top lieutenants, Edip Gumus and Cemal Tutar.

Kurdish Islamic Organisations and Groups

References

External Links

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