De rol van TAK, de Koerdische organisatie die de bomaanslagen in Ankara opeist

After the arrest of PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan in 1999, the group saw an influx of recruits from urban areas. When the PKK realized in the early 2000s that its struggle in rural areas was not yielding results, it shifted its operations to cities. Many of the new recruits were schooled in military ideology and received technical training. “The military council sent these city-born and grown-up youngsters back to their hometowns with orders to sever all contacts with the organization and its legal and illegal wings”, Zanyar said. “They were to have no contact whatsoever with the organization. They were instructed to follow Ocalan and the organization from the news media and act accordingly. They were given unlimited freedom in taking the initiative.” Initially, about 150 new militants were given explosives training and sent back to Turkey and 150 were kept at the PKK camps. Although some of those who had gone back to their hometowns were caught, most of them succeeded in infiltrating. They began recruiting people in the places they were posted. According to Zanyar, the TAK inside Turkey is organized in cells of two to three people who have no contact with other cells. They are not subordinate to anyone in the organization. They were told to not attract attention, and to become normal citizens, even get married, settle down and manage their own financing. Zanyar doesn’t believe the TAK takes orders from HPG leader Murat Karayilan. To Zanyar, the TAK exists on its own (…) “After 1994, they started debating whether to set up separate front organizations or tolerate efforts by others to do it. I am aware of opinions that were being widely discussed. For example, they advocated disproportional responses to the state’s cruelty and violence, but without implicating the PKK — hence the need for separate structures. Many of the teams sent to cities for actions were apprehended before reaching their destinations, hence the need for autonomous bodies. Such an organization had to be ideologically attached to the organization, but independent politically and militarily.” Turhalli believes the TAK is the outcome of all these stipulations. “To me, the TAK is not a PKK wing or independent. It is a structure that has adopted the PKK’s ideology and philosophy, but diverges from it in actions. In other words, if the PKK agrees to cease hostilities, the TAK will follow that line. I don’t think the TAK is an organization that is commanded by the PKK. I think of it as a structure that is guided by the PKK’s general course of action.”

Mahmut Bozarslan in Who is TAK and why did it attack Ankara? (Al-monitor)