Did Ankara miss its chance to head off the Islamic State?
“Although the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — ISIS or the Islamic State (IS), as it calls itself today — is not considered in Turkey an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, they are all part of the same network and none should be identified as Sunni,” said Professor Hilmi Demir of the Hitit University Religious Studies department, in a conversation with Al-Monitor. Demir, also a scientific advisor to the 21st Century Turkey Institute, an Ankara-based think tank, said these terror groups also pose a serious threat to the Sunni population in the region, in addition to the Shiites and minorities. To him, these groups should be defined as “Salafist-jihadists” and the Sunni label was misused in this context, only to specify non-Shiite.
More:Did Ankara miss its chance to head off the Islamic State? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
