On 11 May, in Reyhanli, Turkey, on the border with Syria, twin car bombs killed 51 people and wounded many others.
According to The Economist, 18 May: “… locals, blame the interventionist policies of Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.” They went on to report that the blasts ripped out the commercial center of Reyhanli which until recently had been a bastion of Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) party.
Reyhanli and other nearby villages are the homes to thousands of Syrian refugees and the rebel opposition to the Syrian regime. Locals vented their rage at the Syrians after the bombings and caused many Syrians to flee.
A local newspaper editor, Hasan Ozdemir, said: “Arming the opposition fighters and providing them haven …was the worse blunder of all.”
Turkey has embraced an explicit policy of regime change in Syria and opened its doors to thousands of refugees. The Turks deny arming the rebels but some rebel groups are praising Turkey for the assistance to the fight.
Many in Turkey are unhappy at the influx of foreign jihadist fearing they will infect local communities. Many fear that the blow back for the support to the rebels will affect the chances of Erdogan’s chances for reelection next year.
Some think that Turkey could become another Pakistan with sectarian tension with the Turkish majority Sunnis and the small Alawite (Shi’ite) who are fiercely loyal to Assad.
However, a Muslim cleric living in the U.S., Fetullah Gullen, wields surprising political power in Turkey. Hr recently gave a sermon in Pennsylvania, where he broadcast from his website warning against hubris. Mr. Gulen is the spiritual leader of a global network, the Hizmet (meaning service), that includes media outlets, schools, and charities. The party of Erdogan, AK, and the Gulenist joined forces against the generals for the election in 2007.
It remains to be seen if Erdogan can continue to support the Syrian rebels or he has to pull back to maintain political support at home.
The Guantanamo hunger strike is not a precedent setting news event.
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) in a UK jail started with Bobby Sands refusing food on 1 March 1981. Sands decided that other IRA prisoners should join the strike at staggered intervals in order to maximize publicity with prisoners steadily deteriorating successively over several months.
The significance of the hunger strike was the prisoners’ aim of being declared political prisoners (or prisoners of war) as opposed to criminals. The Washington Post reported that the primary aim of the hunger strike was to generate international publicity.
Sands died on 5 May 1981 in Maze, UK, prison hospital after 66 days of hunger-striking, aged 27.
Nine of Sands’ IRA comrades followed, refusing to eat until they too made the final trek from their cells in the notorious Maze prison to their plots in a cemetery.
The hunger strike in Guantanamo for Islamic Jihadist who was captured while using arms against the U.S. continues.
Fayiz Al-Kandari is one of an estimated 100 men on hunger strike at the Guantanamo terrorist prison camp, isolated on the tip of Cuba. Of that number, whose two-month starvation protest has created news headlines around the world, 100 out of the 166 prisoners are following some form of hunger strike. It is reported that only 12 are being force fed continually and the others are eating a little…
In the decade of the War on Terror Guantanamo is the site of an out-of-jurisdiction prison camp for suspected Islamist militants captured during the “war on terror” has the base been featured so prominently in the headlines that many think the hunger strike is something new.
It is surprisingly that the strike did not begin about issues with their treatment. Nor did it immediately involve larger numbers of detainees. Statements from prisoners passed on by their lawyers, and declassified for release, show that on Feb. 6 there was an intensive search of prisoner accommodations at Camp Six where the most dangerous inmates are kept.
Inmates were ordered outside and personal items, such as letters, toothbrushes and books, were searched and some confiscated.
The hunger strike is nothing more than an attempt by the Jihadist to gain attention to be released or for the U.S. to close Guantanamo. Force feeding can be very painful but better than let them die a martyr’s death.
