Turkey's Troubling Turn
Terrorism and Security After the Attempted Coup
By Soner Cagaptay
Before the failed military coup on July 15, Turkey was struggling to recover from a bombing and shoot-out that killed 45 people at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport on June 28. Although the attempted takeover complicates the country’s crackdown on terrorism, its security problems began long before this summer’s turmoil. The three jihadists who planned the attack had been in Turkey for quite some time, having traveled over 750 miles from Syria, rented an apartment in Istanbul, and then assembled bombs for a month. They did so without raising alarm for a simple reason: Turkey itself is radicalizing and the jihadists blended in.
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