No, no, no — not from Turkey’s NATO contingent. According to SITE Intelligence, a group that does an excellent job monitoring Islamist websites and publications, a Turkish extremist group has announced that five Turkish fighters were killed when U.S. or NATO forces bombed terrorists in Paktika (sorry, no link possible; SITE is a subscription service and the jihadist group’s website is unavailable in the United States).
It seems increasingly that Turks — the citizenry if not the government — are rooting for if not fighting on the wrong side of the war on terrorism. Turkey has become more an adversary than an ally and certainly a security risk. The Turkish government has created a milieu that encourages anti-Western incitement and support for terrorism. Turkish terrorists are becoming frequent participants in the world’s jihadi hot spots.
Let’s just hope that Prime Minister Erdogan and Namik Tan, Turkey’s ambassador in the United States, have the good sense not to demand an apology for the deaths of their citizens in Afghanistan as they did for the deaths of their extremists on the Mavi Marmara; the situations are analagous. Indeed, rather than demand apologies, perhaps it’s time for Erdogan and Tan to start issuing some of their own.