|
Who are the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks TAK?
23.6.2010 |
|
|
|
June
23, 2010
The Kurdish Freedom Hawks [Kurdistan Freedom
Falcons], a Kurdish separatist group, claimed
responsibility for a bomb attack on a
Turkish
military bus in
Turkey's largest city of Istanbul that killed five
people on Tuesday. Here are some key facts about the
group:
PROFILE:
-- Teyrebazen Azadiya Kurdistan, or TAK, carried out
its first attacks in 2004. The early bombings were
largely small and non-lethal, but from 2005 onwards
TAK launched more deadly attacks. In July that year
it bombed a minibus in the western Turkish holiday
resort of Kusadasi, killing at least five people
including a British woman and an Irish woman.
-- In January 2008 the United States said it had
designated the TAK as a terrorist group, subjecting
it to U.S. financial sanctions.
|
TAK (Teyrênbazên
Azadîya
Kurdistan). |
-- Although little is
known about the TAK, the group is believed to have
links with the Turkey Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),
the main separatist group operating in mainly
Kurdish southeast Turkey [Northern Kurdistan]. The
PKK,www.ekurd.netfounded
by Abdullah Ocalan in 1974, had taken up arms
against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an
ethnic homeland in the southeast. Nearly 40,000
people have been killed in the resulting conflict
since then.
-- The TAK has deliberately attacked Turkish and
foreign civilians. The geographical spread of TAK
attacks also suggests that its members live in
Kurdish migrant communities in western Turkey and in
Istanbul, rather than in the Kurdish heartlands of
the southeast that were the focus of PKK actions.
AIMS:
-- It claims to oppose Turkey's "false policies on
the Kurdish issue", and to be seeking revenge for
the deaths of Kurds at the hands of the Turkish
government.
SOME ATTACKS:
-- Six people were wounded, one seriously, after a
bomb exploded at a supermarket in Istanbul in
February 2006. The TAK claimed responsibility for
the blast and pledged more attacks.
-- Three people were killed and 87 injured in a
blast in Antalya, southern Turkey in August 2006.
The TAK claimed responsibility.
-- In August 2008 the group claimed responsibility
for bomb attacks in the Turkish coastal cities of
Mersin and Izmir. A suspected suicide bomber
detonated a bomb in his car near Mersin, killing
himself and wounding 12 police officers. Two days
later 16 people were wounded, including eight police
and three soldiers, in a car bomb which ripped
through a minibus in Izmir.
WHO ARE THE TAK (Teyrênbazên Azadîya Kurdistan):
Other sources
It's not entirely clear. Some observers believe it's
little more than a front for the PKK (Kurdistan
Workers' Party), the Kurdish separatist group that
fought the Turkish army for self-rule in the mainly
Kurdish southeast of Turkey [Turkey-Kurdistan] which
has claimed around 45,000 lives of Turkish soldiers
and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas.
But others say there is strong evidence it is a
splinter group led by commanders who have split from
the PKK because of dissatisfaction with its tactics,
along the lines of the Real IRA and the IRA.
The Falcons first appeared in 2004 - the same year
the PKK renounced a unilateral ceasefire. The direct
targeting of tourists would be a change in recent
tactics for the PKK. Even in its heyday, much of the
PKK's efforts were directed against the Turkish
military - although there were attacks on civilians,
including tourists.
Today the PKK is a shadow of its former self. The
guerrilla army which fought for control of Kurdish
cities in south-eastern Turkey during the Nineties
is largely gone, defeated by a combination of brutal
tactics by the Turkish army, and a dramatic coup
when Turkey captured its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in
1999, and paraded him before television cameras in
chains.
After Ocalan called for a peaceful solution from the
dock, during his trial by Turkey, the PKK declared a
unilateral ceasefire. But it ended the ceasefire in
2004. Since then, the PKK has resumed violence,
mostly against the Turkish military. In the
meantime, the Falcons have emerged with a series of
attacks on civilians.
Sources Reuters; www.jamestown.org;
www.start.umd.edu (part of U.S. Department of
Homeland Security)
Copyright, respective
author or news agency, Reuters | Agencies
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
®
