This image taken from CCTV provided by Haberturk Newspaper Sunday Jan. 1, 2017 shows the attacker, armed with a long-barrelled weapon, shooting his way into the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey on Sunday morning.

This image taken from CCTV provided by Haberturk Newspaper Sunday Jan. 1, 2017 shows the attacker, armed with a long-barrelled weapon, shooting his way into the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey on Sunday morning. CCTV/Haberturk Newspaper via AP

ISIS Ends Its Separate Peace With Turkey

The politics of the attack and its avowal make the Istanbul massacre much more pivotal than many others.

Ever since New Year’s Day, when a gunman killed at least 39 partiers at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, watchers of the Islamic State have engaged in a familiar, morbid countdown. How long until the Islamic State issues a statement taking credit for the attack? This morning, the wait ended with a press release from the group avowing its authorship of the carnage. Turkish newspapers report that many of the victims died from head shots, point-blank. First they were wounded or cornered, then executed. The killer remains at large.

It is proper to resist the temptation to assess the gravity of this attack by noting that its body count is less than that of Omar Mateen’s Islamic State-inspired attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando (50 dead), or the coordinated attacks in Paris in November 2015 (130 dead). Allocating column inches according to these benchmarks is the very definition of normalization. (If this attack had taken place five years ago, it would have prompted smothering coverage for days, not a quickly expiring moment of media attention, and a return to regularly scheduled coverage.)

Moreover, in this case especially, the politics of the attack and its avowal make the Reina massacre much more pivotal than many others with higher tallies of casualties. The Islamic State has now formally ended its separate peace with Turkey. Since the group’s sack of Mosul in mid-2014, when it took captive 46 Turks, including diplomats, from the consulate there, the Turkish posture toward the Islamic State has been inconsistent at best. Turkey negotiated the hostages’ freedom (at what price is unclear), and its border remained permeable to anyone who wished to cross it—rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but also jihadists bound for the Islamic State—for well over a year. At the same time, Turkey allowed U.S. anti-Islamic State operations out of Incirlik Air Base. The Islamic State, for its part, fulminated against the Turkish “secular” government (never mind that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is himself an Islamist) in its propaganda and even mounted a few attacks.

But it never claimed an attack outright. Few doubted that the Istanbul Airport raid was the Islamic State’s handiwork, and many smaller attacks have likewise been attributed but not avowed. (A car bombing in Diyarbakir in November was claimed for the Islamic State by its Amaq News Agency. But the attribution for that attack is still murky, as it was claimed by a Kurdish terror group as well.) Turkey has, up till now, been unique among victims in never having its victimhood acknowledged by its assailant. Whatever value this fiction held, it has now ended.

This time is different. The press release states that the attack was “ordered by the prince of the believers,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and not merely addressed to him by an adoring fan. The Islamic State chooses its words carefully, and these ones imply responsibility at the highest level. Moreover, the new aggression comes after Turkey’s own tilt against ISIS, through military campaigns along the western edge of the Islamic State’s territory, and Baghdadi’s personal call in November for attacks against Turkey's “apostate” government. Last week, Turkey participated in a Russian-backed ceasefire involving a slate of rebel groups, including several jihadist ones but not the Islamic State. That agreement demonstrates overt, unforced alignment with Assad and his non-Muslim allies. And it is accompanied by further Turkish military gains against the Islamic State in al-Bab, the group’s former stronghold in western Syria. Just weeks ago, the Islamic State chained two captured Turkish soldiers by the neck, doused them with gasoline, and burned them alive on camera. Hostilities are open, and the game is on.

The countdown I mentioned earlier—the social-media vigil kept by Islamic State analysts, for the moment the attack was claimed through the group’s official channels—is rarely undertaken with such certainty of the outcome. The target of the attack, a gathering of mostly Muslim merrymakers celebrating the end of a year as marked on the Christian calendar, was pure Islamic State bait. The commando-style raid likewise bears the group’s hallmarks. But we knew, too, that Turkey was by now an overripe target, and another, longer countdown, for its inclusion on the list of countries targeted aggressively and openly, had reached its conclusion as well.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.