Grey Wolves
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The Grey Wolves, officially known as Ülkü Ocakları, are a Turkish far-right ultranationalist organization. They are commonly described as ultranationalist and/or neo-fascist. A youth organization with close links to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), it has been described as MHP's paramilitary or militant wing. Its members deny its political nature and claim it to be a cultural and education foundation.
Established by Colonel Alparslan Türkeş in the late 1960s, it rose to prominence during the late 1970s political violence in Turkey when its members engaged in urban guerrilla warfare with left-wing activists and militants. Scholars have described it as a death squad, responsible for most of the violence and killings in this period. Their most notorious attack, which killed over 100 Alevis, took place in Maraş in December 1978. They are also alleged to have been behind the Taksim Square Massacre on May Day, 1977. The masterminds behind the Pope John Paul II assassination attempt in 1981 by Grey Wolves member Mehmet Ali Ağca were not identified and the organization's role remains unclear. Due to these attacks, the Grey Wolves have been described by some scholars, journalists, and governments as a terrorist organization. The organization has long been a prominent suspect in investigations into the Turkish "deep state", and is suspected of having had close dealings in the past with the Counter-Guerrilla, the Turkish branch of the NATO Operation Gladio.
A staunchly Pan-Turkist organization, in the early 1990s the Grey Wolves extended their area of operation into the post-Soviet states with Turkic and Muslim populations. Up to thousands of its members fought in the Nagorno-Karabakh War on the Azerbaijani side, and the First and Second Chechen Wars on the Chechen side. After an unsuccessful attempt to seize power in Azerbaijan in 1995, they were banned in that country. In 2005, Kazakhstan also banned the organization, classifying it as terrorist.
Under Devlet Bahçeli, who assumed the leadership of MHP and Grey Wolves after Türkeş's death in 1997, the organization has been reformed. The organization has also been active in the Turkish-controlled portion of Cyprus. It has affiliated branches in several Western European countries with significant Turkish populations, such as Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. According to a 2014 estimate, the Grey Wolves are supported by 3.6% of the Turkish electorate. Furthermore, the Grey Wolves have had considerable success in some Turkish elections such as the parliamentary elections in 1999 where the Grey Wolves garnered 18% of the national vote.
Massacres edit
Bloody May 1st or May 1st Massacre is the incident that resulted in the death of 34 people and the injury of 136 people on the Labor Day celebrated in Taksim Square on May 1, 1977. The role of idealists in this massacre is controversial.
The March 16 Massacre was a bomb and armed attack in front of Istanbul University Faculty of Pharmacy on March 16, 1978, which resulted in the death of 7 students and the injury of 41 students. An intelligence officer from MİT, who was secretly working among the Idealist students who were first-year students at Istanbul University Faculty of Law, stated in his information note to the Istanbul Police that "Idealists will throw dynamite and carry out armed screening on the leftist students at the exit of Istanbul University within 8-10 days."
Malatya Massacre or Malatya Incidents, violent incidents and murders against Alevis that took place in the Malatya province of Turkey on 17-20 April 1978. In the events recorded by Malatya Mayor Hamit Fendoğlu, when idealist and Islamist countries entered the Alevi and leftist neighborhoods of the city and used violence, 8 people, including 3 children, were killed, 100 people were injured, 20 of them seriously, and approximately 1000 workplaces were damaged. and the house was transferred.
Balgat Massacre was the attack on 10 August 1978, in the Balgat district of Ankara, where 5 people died as a result of a volley of automatic weapons fired from a car by Mustafa Pehlivanoğlu and other Idealists, at four coffeehouses frequented by left-wing people. Mustafa Pehlivanoğlu, one of the perpetrators of the massacre, was executed after the September 12 Coup.
The Bahçelievler Massacre was the incident in which young people named Latif Can, Efrahim Ezgin, Hürcan Gürses, Osman Nuri Uzunlar, Serdar Alten, Faruk Erzan and Salih Gevence, members of the Turkish Workers' Party, were killed in Ankara's Bahçelievler neighborhood on October 8, 1978.
The perpetrators of the incident were Abdullah Çatlı, Haluk Kırcı, Ünal Osmanağaoğlu, Bünyamin Adanalı, Ercüment Gedikli, Mahmut Korkmaz and Kadri Kürşat Poyraz. One of the victims was strangled with a towel, four of them were shot at head level, and the other two were killed on the Eskişehir road.
Maraş Massacre or Maraş Incidents is a massacre against Alevis and leftists that took place in Kahramanmaraş between 19 December and 26 December 1978. According to the indictment, 111 people were killed during the events that lasted seven days. 559 houses belonging to Alevis were burned and nearly 290 workplaces were destroyed. At the end of the trials that lasted 23 years, 22 people were sentenced to death, 7 people were sentenced to life imprisonment, and 321 people were sentenced to imprisonment between 1-24 years. 68 people who played an important role in the massacre could not be reached. It is considered one of the events that caused the September 12 Coup.
Piyangotepe Massacre took place on May 16, 1979, in Ankara's Incirli District (today Keçiören), where a coffeehouse usually frequented by leftists was raided by right-wing militants, resulting in the death of 7 people and wounding of 2 people. Ali Bülent Orkan, one of the defendants, was executed after the September 12 Coup.
Çorum Incidents or Çorum Massacre are bloody events that took place in Çorum between May and July 1980 and emerged on political and religious grounds. When the Idealists attacked the Milönü neighborhood, known as the Alevi neighborhood, according to official sources, 57 citizens, most of them Alevis, died and hundreds were injured.
Sivas Massacre, Sivas Incidents, Madımak Massacre or Madımak Incident, occurred during the Pir Sultan Abdal Festival held in Sivas on July 2, 1993, when the Madımak Hotel was burned by a radical Islamist group and 33 mostly Alevi writers, poets, thinkers and 2 people were killed. These are incidents that result in the death of a hotel employee by burning or asphyxiation. The role of idealists in this massacre is controversial.
Gazi Neighborhood events or Gazi Massacre are the events that started on March 12, 1995, as a result of an armed provocative attack carried out by unidentified persons against civilians in the coffeehouse with the same taxi, killing a taxi driver they stopped at a coffeehouse where Alevis were the majority in Gazi District, and spread to other parts of the city. As a result of the events that spread throughout the city until March 15, 1995, 22 people died, hundreds were injured and arrested.
Although the Grey Wolves do not carry out mass attacks as an organization today, some members continue to be involved in violence and other crimes.
Assassinations edit
Abdi İpekçi, the Editor-in-Chief of Milliyet newspaper at the time, was killed by the assassin Mehmet Ali Ağca on February 1, 1979.
In the MHP and Idealist Organizations Indictment, the prosecutor's office stated about Celal Adan: "It has become certain that he was one of the planners and implementers of the murder of Kemal Türkler." note has been omitted.[11] In his defense of the relevant case, Adan rejected the statement he had previously given at the police station, stating that "Alparslan Türkeş gave the order to kill Kemal Türkler" on the grounds that the signature did not belong to him. In the Kemal Türkler case, Celal Adan was not convicted due to lack of evidence before and due to statute of limitations.
On May 13, 1981, shortly after 17:00, a Browning brand 9 mm shotgun was shot by Mehmet Ali Ağca. It was carried out with 3 bullets fired from a semi-automatic pistol. As a result of the initiative, Pope John II. John Paulus was shot in the hand and stomach.
In 1988, Idealist militant Kartal Demirağ organized an assassination against the then Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey, Turgut Özal, and Özal escaped with injuries.
Relationships edit
Allies edit
- Nationalist Movement Party
- Justice and Development Party
- United States of America (during the Cold War)
- Alperen Hearths
Enemies edit
- Kurdistan Workers' Party (although there are some allegations that they do drug treafficking together)
- Kurdish Hezbollah
- The Islamic State