Reading the tea leaves on Turkey and the Taliban

Dr. Thoreau Redcrow

Dr. Thoreau Redcrow, an American geopolitical analyst, offers up a review of Turkey’s burgeoning alliance with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and how it will be driven by Erdoğan’s jihadist worldview and labyrinth of domestic extremist allies.

In August of 2020, a video went viral on social media, showing men wearing Afghan attire in Istanbul, Turkey, unfurling a Taliban banner inside the Hagia Sophia, which had recently been converted by the Erdoğan regime into a mosque. The men shouted “Allahu Akbar” inside the once historical center of Orthodox Christianity, which lead the researcher Noor Dahri to opine that the gesture was, “a motivational message of the Muslim Brotherhood to the world’s Islamist extremists and terrorists”, adding that “soon, pro-ISIS activists will raise their flag too.”

A year later, as Turkey’s autocrat Tayyip Erdoğan seeks to form an alliance with the triumphant Taliban, one has to wonder if that symbolic act was more prophetic than anyone realized. Indeed, the line of predictive breadcrumbs strewn from the caves of Pashtunistan to the 1,100 gilded rooms of Ankara’s Sultanic Palace, provide ample evidence that Turkey will attempt to weaponize the Taliban into their latest takfiri proxy militia (à la ISIS), leaving terror in their wake and Turkish geostrategic gains amidst the turmoil.

Erdoğan is tipping his hand early

The Turkish state is seeking to position themselves as a guarantor, mediator, facilitator, intermediary, and international credibility voucher for the Taliban’s upcoming theocracy. But the most surprising aspect of this maneuver, is how transparent Erdoğan’s regime has been in pursuing it.

For instance, Turkey continues to keep its embassy in Kabul open and did not evacuate the core of its diplomatic staff, including their ambassador. Relatedly, Erdoğan has said he would like to meet with the Taliban’s supreme leader in an attempt to “help secure peace”. Although, recent history from the torture centers of occupied Afrin, to the bombed villages of Iraqi Kurdistan, to the destroyed Armenian churches of Artsakh, show the world exactly what Erdoğan means when he speaks of ‘peace’.

The central mechanism of Turkey’s desire to exert influence and utilize the Taliban for their objectives will be running Kabul’s strategic Hamid Karzai Airport. This will essentially make Ankara the gatekeepers of land-locked Afghanistan and allow them to control the tap of incoming and exiting jihadist fighters, in a similar way to how MIT Turkish intelligence devised their “jihadi highway” for global ISIS militants travelling from Istanbul to Gaziantep and into Syria.

Of course, Erdoğan cannot admit this openly, so his official reason that he gave in an August 18, 2021, interview is that giving Turkey the keys to Afghanistan’s air space will “strengthen” the Taliban’s position “in the international arena”. No doubt, Turkey will also repay their Taliban allies by helping smooth over their image, in a similar way to how Turkey has led the charm offensive for al-Qaeda’s offshoot Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the US-designated terrorist group running Turkish-protected Idlib.

An added benefit of Erdoğan’s desire to get in bed with the Taliban is that it will not require any approval from the Turkish Parliament, as he intends to cynically use a bilateral partnership they ratified in 2018, entitled the Strategic Partnership and Friendship Agreement, based on a deal he signed with Afghanistan’s now overthrown President Ghani back in 2014.

Article 2 of that ten-year agreement vaguely addresses security cooperation, citing “training, experience sharing, information sharing, personnel exchanges and grants” between Turkey and the Afghan Government, which Erdoğan will undoubtedly use as legal cover for trying to militarily transform Afghanistan into one of his neo-Ottoman vilayets, akin to his recent moves in Libya, northwest Syria, northern Cyprus, Azerbaijan, and Somalia.

The recipe for this devious exercise will involve a range of ingredients, such as generous Qatari financing, Pakistani ISI intelligence control over key Taliban leaders, and Turkey manipulating American fears of them drifting into Russia’s orbit, in order to play Washington and Moscow off of each other.

In an allusion to Islamabad already getting to work on their role, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan recently met with Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, and dutifully proclaimed, “We will be talking to the Taliban, to use our influence on them, to have a face-to-face talk with Turkey.” And to fully understand how well ISI has pulled those puppet strings, one only needs to look at the recent statements of admiration by the Taliban towards the Turkish state.

The Taliban on Turkey

Due to its prior non-combatant role in Afghanistan and the fact that Turkey is a NATO member in name only, the Turkish military does not face any built-up bad will from Afghans from helping the Western coalition over the last twenty years. In fact, driving through Kabul one is met with a barrage of billboards promoting Turkey-Afghanistan relations as a form of Islamic solidarity. The Turkish television drama Resurrection: Ertuğrul is also a blockbuster hit in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has helped culturally manipulate public opinion in Ankara’s favor.

Yet, the Taliban has likely even made Erdoğan blush with their odes of admiration since seizing power. For example, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid made their position very clear, declaring “We want good relations with Turkey, the Turkish government and the Muslim people of the Turkish nation.” Mujahid then went on to decree “The Turkish public and state are our friends”, before stating “We need Turkey’s support in the field of education, just as before.”

Of course, other NATO states might wonder why the misogynistic Taliban who previously banned girls and women from attending school or university, is seeking scholastic help from Turkey, but one look at Erdoğan’s increasingly Salafist Sultanate makes that question a rhetorical one.

Not to be outdone, another Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen upped the ante, declaring “We will rebuild Afghanistan in all areas, and we need Turkey the most to do that.” For emphasis he then added, “Turkey is a very important actor for us. It’s a respectable and strong country in the world and has a special place for the Muslim community. Turkey’s bond with Afghanistan can’t be compared with any other country.”

Shaheen, then closed out his remarks by referring to “our Turkish brothers”, before asking for Turkey’s help in areas beyond education, namely “health, economy, construction, energy, as well as the processing of underground resources.” And with up to $3 trillion USD in minerals—including vital lithium deposits the world needs—embedded within Afghanistan’s mountains, his last remark is perhaps the most significant. As such rare earth elements could be the financial rocket fuel for propelling Erdoğan’s desired quasi-caliphate of allies stretching from the Balkans to Baku and into the Turkic Steppe of central Asia.

Turkey on the Taliban

The verbal love affair between the Taliban and Turkey has not only been a one-sided courtship, as the Turkish state has made sure to reciprocate their feelings of mutual admiration. In fact, on the same day that ISIS-K was being waved through a Taliban checkpoint to blow up thirteen American troops (and 180+ Afghans), Erdoğan’s team was spending over three hours meeting with the Taliban.

For his part, Erdoğan has made no secret of his support for the Taliban, lauding their “moderate” tone and statements, before throwing the Americans under the bus by remarking, “the Taliban held some talks with the US, it should hold these talks with Turkey much more comfortably. Because Turkey has nothing that contradicts their beliefs.”

Of course, Erdoğan declaring that Turkey is in full agreement with the Taliban’s ideology should be enough for full NATO expulsion, that is if the organization actually believed in any of their stated principles. But alas, the last decade and piles of dead Kurds, Arabs, Armenians, and Assyrians across the Middle East and North Africa has shown that the Turkish military can act with impunity and free from international repercussions.

Erdoğan’s personal jihadism

To fully understand Turkish foreign policy under Erdoğan, one must consider that he is essentially a Salafi jihadist driven by pan-Islamist delusions of grandeur, although chameleonically beardless and wearing a designer suit. And since past is prologue, it should be noted that while mayor of Istanbul, Erdoğan referred to himself as “the Imam of Istanbul” and a “servant of Sharia.”

More recently, Erdoğan made his mission known at an August 26, 2020, speech honoring the Battle of Manzikert’s 949^th anniversary. It was there that he unequivocally defined his idea of “conquest”, summarizing that, “It is establishing the dominance of the justice that Allah commanded in the [conquered] region.”

As to any nations seeking to defy his wishes, Erdoğan then threatened that, “Turkey will take what is its right in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Aegean Sea, and in the Black Sea… If there is anyone who wants to stand against us and pay the price, let them come. If not, let them get out of our way, and we will see to our own business.”

Of course, that ‘business’ of recent years has meant plundering all of Aleppo’s factories, arming ISIS to carry out genocide on Yazidis, assassinating leaders of the Kurdish freedom movement, expanding the illegal occupation of Cyprus, threatening to steal Greek islands and gas rights, antagonizing Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood, supporting the beheading of cartoonists in France, flooding Libya and Artsakh with head-chopping mercenaries, and invading Rojava to steal half a million olive trees—while committing mass rape, murder, kidnapping, torture, archaeological looting, and vandalism of Alevi worship sites.

Then again, Erdoğan made no attempt to conceal his aims, ending that aforementioned Manzikert speech by quoting the Turkish poet Yahya Kemal, reciting “This storm breaking out is the Turkish army, oh Lord!... May your renowned and strengthened name be raised up with the calls to prayer! Make us the victor, because this is the last army of Islam!”

The company Erdoğan keeps

There are a wide range of jihadist figures outside and inside of Turkey with personal ties to Erdoğan and his AKP party, that give observers insight into the worldview and strategic positioning he will bring to his new alliance with the Taliban.

For starters, old photos and video of a younger Erdoğan and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar—the Afghan mujahideen known as the “butcher of Kabul” and warlord founder of Hezb-e Islami—have surfaced in Turkish media. Hekmatyar, who was flown to Turkey in 2018 aboard a Turkish air ambulance to be treated in an Istanbul hospital and welcomed by Erdoğan, is now positioning himself to be one of the non-Taliban members of the new cabal ruling over the new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Within Turkey, there is a cast of al-Qaeda jihadist figures who have enjoyed AKP protection. Three of these notable ones are: İbrahim Şen – an al-Qaeda recruiter and former Gitmo detainee, who has been utilized by Turkish intelligence to funnel jihadists into Syria since 2011; Mehmet Doğan (aka Mullah Muhammed el-Kesri) – who led the Turkish al-Qaeda group Tahşiyeciler and has called for the decapitation of Americans; and Yusuf Selami Çakaroğlu – an al-Qaeda cleric who Erdoğan recently released from prison so he could preach his views on Turkish state television.

Outside the al-Qaeda militant arena, Erdoğan is aligned with extremist religious figures inside Turkey such as: Nureddin Yıldız – a radical cleric who praised sharia to his 700,000 social media followers on the day the Taliban took over Kabul; Mehmet Akif Can – a theologian and state TV presenter who hailed the Taliban’s victory because “Allah is with those who are patient”; İhsan Şenocak – a jihadist imam who applauded the obligatory burqa returning to Afghanistan; and Mehmet Boynukalın – the former chief imam of the Hagia Sophia Mosque, who tweeted “if the Taliban or anyone else declares their loyalty to Islam, we consider them brothers.”

Lastly, Erdoğan’s Islamist pro-Taliban support base within Turkey includes public figures, such as: Ersan Ergür – a strategist allied with the SADAT mercenary organization, who has called for adding Afghanistan into a future Near East Regional Islamic Federation; Ali Şahin – an AKP politician with ties to Pakistan, who has called for incorporating a special Chechen unit of jihadist mercenaries into the Turkish military; Faruk Beşer – a columnist for Erdoğan’s Yeni Şafak news daily, who compared the Taliban capture of Kabul to the Prophet Muhammad’s return to Mecca and tweeted “we rejoice in their victory”; and Doğu Perinçek – an ultra-nationalist politician who compared the Taliban’s victory to Ataturk’s war of independence, while calling for a Eurasianist recalibration of Turkish foreign policy towards Russia and China.

In a diagnosis on why Erdoğan’s AKP supporters are predisposed to be Islamists, Professor Ahmet Kasım Han, a specialist on Afghan relations at Istanbul’s Altinbas University, has theorized, “They consider Turkey as a country with a manifest destiny – an exceptional position within the Muslim world. It is based on Turkey’s past and its Ottoman heritage as the seat of the caliphate.”

A foreshadowed epilogue

What is undeniable is that Turkey is seeking a larger role on the world stage and Erdoğan’s regime is emboldened from a series of military excursions into Libya, Syria, Rojava, Southern Kurdistan, and Artsakh, where the international community has allowed the Turkish military to murder with impunity.

Now the next domino to fall in Ankara’s plans for a neo-Ottoman restoration could be Afghanistan, an arterial state at the heart of central Asia where Turkey can both collaborate with their jihadist brethren in the Taliban and utilize ISIS-K as a false flag proxy to carry out advantageous geopolitical terrorist attacks around the globe (including upon themselves).

Presciently, Turkey is set to construct a massive Pentagon-esque military headquarters in Ankara, which will house their Defense Ministry alongside 15,000 personnel and be shaped like a crescent moon and star. Erdoğan recently announced that this Crescent Star complex will instill “fear in enemies and trust in allies” and be completed by the Turkish Republic’s centennial in 2023. The only question for other nations around the world, and especially the West, is whether they will be an enemy or complicit ally going forward.

ANHA