Prepared by: Geostrategic Studies Team
At first glance, it can be imagined that Turkey today, led by the Justice and Development Party and its partner, the nationalist movement, differs from the period of the nineties, the stage of secular transformation and crystallization of political Islamic thought, which provided a margin of freedom in the stage of its first control over power after the year 2000, before it developed into the brutality that threatens today. The country and its people are under the banner of the supreme national interests of the Turkish state.
In principle, Turkey has been repeating itself for an entire century, but the brutality that was the period of the Ottoman Sultanate appeared with the political Islam movement in its new version, which began to erode its elite, ultimately requiring the incubator of the new caliph “Erdogan” according to the standards of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and its relatives and sisters from Al-Qaeda, and his inauguration. Virtual caliph for Muslims. While the marriage process that took place in Turkey between the Justice and Development Party and the nationalist movement led by Bagceli, naturally resulted in a new Islamic nationalist regime that destroyed the Turkish street and pushed it into a major rift between society, and Turkey turned into an arena for sorting out between the nationalist Turk and the enemy opposition, of course according to the standards and concepts of the ruling authority. With its allies, abhorrent nationalism and political Islam. Thus, Turkey entered a dark tunnel with more restrictive standards for society, and while both political Islam and the extreme nationalist movement were working on their own under the widespread control of racists - extremists, the Turkish scene became more heated and dangerous at the same time, which is that we are facing two liquidating forces against the violators, the extremists. Religious people on one side, and racist nationalists on the other. Consequently, the opposition citizen, led by the Kurds, while he was only subjected to liquidation operations at the hands of the racist nationalists, today he is exposed to those who consider them religious infidels and those who fight them nationalistically. Here we realize how dangerous the process of marriage between Erdogan's party and the Bagceli movement is, and between them are the Gray Thaeb gangs and some armed factions of extremists who implement the agendas of the Turkish regime at the expense of those who disagree with it.
Bloody and violent Gray Wolves
Erdogan did not make a mistake in his strategy, based on including its continuity as a political Islam project, controlling the reins of government, and making amendments that would help it survive for a long period of time, regarding the alliance with the nationalist movement that runs networks of racist extremism, and has a large number of death and killing squads that have a prominent role in political and security life. And the military inside Turkey and its main institutions. Perhaps putting half a million extremists in the service of Erdogan and his projects is not an easy matter in terms of continuity in the regime’s projects aimed at Ottomanizing Turkey’s future.
The Gray Wolves organization was the striking force in the violent terrorist acts that Turkey witnessed in the 1980s. It participated in killings, executions, ethnic cleansing, and the disappearance of thousands of Kurdish activists, politicians, and civilians. It engaged in major terrorist operations, as it was classified as a terrorist organization responsible for Hundreds of Alawites were killed in the Marash massacre in 1978, and it was involved in the Taksim Square massacre in 1977, in which 126 people were killed. Its cadres are also considered the masterminds of the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II by Muhammad Ali Agha. The Gray Wolves were considered an organization hostile to the Turkish authority in the 1980s, after the organization had about 100 training camps, about 1,700 branches, and included more than 200,000 members. The Turkish authorities recorded that 220 members of the organization killed 694 leftist and liberal activists and thinkers in Turkey.
But with the movement’s focus on its hostility to the Kurds in the 1990s, the authorities took the initiative to involve it in battles against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which made it accepted by successive Turkish governments, which used it in their battles against the Kurdish people, before calling those military divisions affiliated with the Gray Wolves “divisions.” Death", which participated in ethnic cleansing operations within the Kurdish cities and countryside in the northeast of the country. It is noteworthy that the name of Alp Arslan Celik, one of the Gray Wolves activists, emerged when he appeared in a video clip of the shooting down of the Russian plane in the Latakia countryside in 2015, and he spoke about the details of the process of liquidating one of the Russian pilots.
Former Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan is considered a teacher of both Erdogan and the Gray Wolves movement, as he relied on mixing racist Turkish nationalist ideas with extremist religious ideas to gather supporters. This established an area of cooperation and agreement between Erbakan and his student Erdogan with the Gray Wolves movement. After the political cooperation between the Turkish President and the “Wolves” became public in 2017, events unfolded to reveal that the organization’s members had gathered within militias inside the Syrian city of Afrin, which has been controlled by Turkey since 2018, according to what the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” revealed in February 2018. .
Following Operation Olive Branch, these elements were stationed in northern Syria under direct assignment from Ankara. At that time, the participation of the Gray Wolves was no longer a secret, as the European Center for Human Rights confirmed that “the Turkish terrorist organization supports the Turkmen in Syria with military aid and fighters from members of the National Movement Party.” The center revealed that many of them were killed in battles with Syrian regime forces. A report by the Turkish newspaper "Intezer" published in February 2016 confirms that Ankara used the "Grey Wolves" militias, alongside "ISIS" and armed terrorist factions loyal to Ankara, in its efforts to control northern Syria.
The activity of this movement in Syria did not begin during the recent Turkish aggression, but rather years ago, when the Turkmen in Syria began receiving military aid, in addition to fighters from the “Gray Wolves.”
The Gray Wolves Organization, also called the Ideal Youth and officially known as (Turkish: Ülkü Ocakları), is a far-right Turkish organization formed in the late 1960s. It is considered the unofficial armed arm of the Nationalist Movement Party and opposes any political settlement with the Kurdish political movement. The Gray Wolves Organization focuses its ideas on the superiority of the Turkish race and people and restoring its glories and history, seeking to unify the Turkish peoples in one state extending from the Balkans to Central Asia, taking inspiration from the history of the Ottoman Empire, which gathered under its authority many states in Asia, Europe and Africa, trying to integrate the Turkish identity. And the Islamic religion in one combination, which is what they see as very dominant in their speeches and theses, hostility to other nationalities such as the Kurds, Greeks, Armenians, and other religious groups such as Christians and Jews, and opposition to the Kurdish issue in Turkey by various means.
According to security and human rights reports, the group carried out 694 attacks between 1974 and 1980, killing thousands. It is also believed that the organization fought in Azerbaijan against Armenia, before participating in a coup attempt that ended with it being banned there. It was also banned in Kazakhstan in 2005.
The organization participated in the conflict between the Turkish Cypriots and the Greeks in Cyprus, supported the Uyghurs in the Chinese region of Xinjiang, and fought in the first and second Chechen wars against the Russians, and in recent years reports have emerged talking about its coordination with the Tatars of the Crimean Peninsula and the Turkmen of Syria.
The organization is widely spread in Europe, with reports indicating that its members in Germany are estimated at 18,000 people.
The Turkish President raised the organization’s famous hand signal at an election rally as part of his 2018 election campaign, but many deny that Erdogan means the “Gray Wolves Movement.”
This sign, which resembles a wolf's head, does not necessarily indicate belonging to the Gray Wolves organization, but it may broadly mean sympathy with it.
The name of the organization goes back to an ancient legend that talks about a war of genocide against the Turks, from which only one child survived. He was forced to marry a she-wolf and give birth to 12 people from her who rebuilt the Turkish tribes.
The cold murder of Deniz Poyraz on July 17, 2021 sparked widespread anger in the Kurdish community in Turkey, as the young woman is the latest victim in a series of crimes targeting Kurdish female activists, July 20, 2021.
The Gray Wolves Organization focuses its ideas on:
* Supremacy of the Turkish race and people and the restoration of its glory and history
* Striving to unify the Turkish peoples in one state extending from the Balkans to Central Asia, taking inspiration from the history of the Ottoman Empire, which gathered under its authority many states in Asia, Europe and Africa.
* An attempt to integrate Turkish identity and the Islamic religion into one synthesis, which is what they see as very dominant in their speeches and proposals.
* Hostility to other nationalities, such as the Kurds, Greeks, Armenians, and other religious groups, such as Christians and Jews
* Opposing the Kurdish issue in Türkiye by all means.
* In 2017, the head of the Gray Wolves organization, Klavoz, did not find any embarrassment in threatening Iraq and the Bahceli region, saying that more than half a million people - the number of members of the organization - are ready to sweep the region, and he said in text: “Yes, we are ready, we are not kidding.” And we are not playing, we are toasting our martyrs since 1968, for the sake of our nation, half a million are waiting for Ulko Ojaq to join us for martyrdom, not just 5,000.”
* There is the fascist Abdullah Çatli cell, which was supported by Turkish intelligence. It began in the sixties and was involved in the assassination of seven activists in the Turkish Trade Union in 1978. Only three years later, the gang was involved in the attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican in 1981, when Turkish Mehmet Ali Agha, a member of the organization, shot the Pope, who was wounded and taken to the hospital, where he miraculously escaped death.
* The organization was involved in cases of arms and drug smuggling to the Middle East and to Europe via Bulgaria, then Sicily, and from there to the Italian mainland, through an alliance with the Italian mafia. Rome’s claim about this incident in 1985 revealed that the gang smuggled complex weapons from NATO’s stockpiles into Eastern European countries. Including Leopard tanks and Cobra helicopters in exchange for drugs sold by the mafia in the United States.
* Revealing a secret cell of the organization inside Turkey after a car accident occurred in which Abdullah Çatli died with senior officials, including Huseyin Kocadag, one of the most important officials in the Istanbul police in 1996, near the Sursuluk area in the city of Balikhisar in northwestern Turkey, proving the involvement of the Turkish police in joint plots. With the Çatli gang, after which the Turkish Minister of the Interior, Mehmet Açar, and other security officers resigned.
* In an attempt to intimidate the press, 50 members of the Gray Wolves opened fire on the “Flash TV” channel, in an attempt to cover up the events of the case, by the government of Tansu Ciller (1993-1996 AD) following the channel’s publication of a report on the involvement of senior statesmen in the Sursuluk case. .
* Tolga Adguzel, the head of the organization’s branch in Kars Governorate, made a racist appeal calling on the organization’s members to hunt Armenians in 2016. He was punished with six months in prison at the time, when he said bluntly after a concert in the city by the famous Armenian musician Tigran Hamsun: “Let’s go out and hunt Armenians in the streets of Kars!” " In addition to many insults and insults he directed at the Armenians and the Armenian musician.
The attack on the Armenians was not the result of the incident. The Swedish Nordic Monitor website refers to the circumstances of the killing of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, in 2007, to expose the cover-up of Erdogan’s state agencies, led by the police, army, intelligence, and media, and to eliminate this heinous crime.
Activity inside Türkiye
Gray Wolves are active in various sectors of the economy, education, and cultural and sports centers. Universities and colleges represent an important environment for the activity of the organization’s elements, but their real authority and direct influence begins from the streets, and among the disaffected poor in Sunni Muslim areas.
The Gray Wolves organization consisted exclusively of Turkish youth, often students or immigrants who left the countryside and migrated to the two largest cities in Turkey, Istanbul and Ankara.
Until 1980, the organization had one hundred camps for intellectual training and paramilitary training for its members. The number of sub-centers affiliated with the mother organization reached nearly 1,700 branches, including about 200,000 officially registered members and a million sympathizers.
The Gray Wolves were the main force participating in the political violence that took place in Turkey, and the organization became like “death squads” participating in killing operations in the streets. According to reports from the security authorities, 220 members of the organization participated in 694 murders that affected both leftists, liberal activists, and intellectuals. Kurds, Alawites, and university and college students in particular.
The following are some of the terrorist operations carried out by the Gray Wolves in Türkiye:
* In 1977, members of the organization participated in the “Maras” massacre, in which hundreds of Alawites were killed
* In 1978, the organization killed 1,000 students in the Istanbul University massacre
* In 1981, the organization’s member, Muhammad Ali Agha, attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II during his visit to Turkey, and the organization’s role in this case is still unclear.
* In 1988, Kartal, a prominent member of the Gray Wolves, attempted to assassinate Prime Minister Turgut Ozal at a conference, three days before a scheduled visit to Greece. The attempt was aimed at disrupting efforts to improve relations with Greece.
* In 1990, the Gray Wolves shifted their focus to the Kurds and participated in the struggle against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in southeastern Turkey.
* In 1995, gray wolves attacked Alevi homes in Istanbul under the watchful eye of the local police, which was “heavily infiltrated by gray wolves.” Calm was not restored in those areas until the police were replaced by military units.
* In 1996, gray wolves attacked leftist students and teachers at Istanbul University under the watchful eye of the local police.
* In 1998, gray wolves attacked two students in Bolu when they passed in front of the organization’s building, and one of the students was killed. On the same day, a construction worker was killed because of his affiliation with the People’s Democratic Party.
* In 2002, the Gray Wolves burned pictures of Masoud Barzani and the Kurdish flag in Ankara in protest against his annexation of Turkmen areas of Kirkuk and considering them as part of Iraqi Kurdistan.
* In 2004, the Gray Wolves were banned from showing a film about the Armenian Genocide in Turkey
* In 2015, the Gray Wolves organized protests across Turkey, burned Chinese flags, and attacked Chinese restaurants in response to the ban imposed by the Chinese government on Uyghur Muslims not to fast during the month of Ramadan.
Members of the Syrian opposition mercenary brigades waving the gray wolf logo in their hands during their occupation of the Kurdish city of Afrin in northern Syria.
Activity outside Türkiye
Azerbaijan
In 1993, Azerbaijani Interior Minister Hamidov founded the National Democratic Party, which was known as Boz (Gray Wolves) and considered itself a branch of the Turkish Gray Wolves. Hamidov has denied in numerous interviews that “the Azerbaijani Gray Wolves are affiliated with the Turkish group.”
During the Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988-1994), about 200 members of the Gray Wolves fought alongside Azerbaijani forces against Armenian forces. Sources from within the organization say that about 15,000 Gray Wolves members were under the direct command of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces and formed “independent armed groups.”
China (Xinjiang)
The Turkish Gray Wolves support the East Turkestan independence movement in the Republic of China. They have established training camps in Central Asia for Uyghur youth (Chinese of Turkish origin), most of whom are concentrated in the Xinjiang region in western China. China has considered them one of the main terrorist organizations.
Cyprus
Following the Turkish invasion of Northern Cyprus in 1974, the Gray Wolves played an important role in making the conflict with Greek Cypriots more extreme by engaging in violence on the island. The Gray Wolves expressed their support for Rauf Denktash, president of unrecognized Northern Cyprus between 1983 and 2005. With state support, it participated in terrorizing Cypriot citizens.
In 1996, a Turkish Cypriot journalist was killed by Gray Wolves after criticizing Denktash and his policies.
In August 1996, the Gray Wolves launched an attack on a gathering of Greek Cypriots against the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus. One demonstrator was beaten to death by gray wolves in the UN buffer zone.
In 1997, the Gray Wolves in northern Cyprus clashed with Kurdish university students who protested against the Turkish invasion of northern Iraq in search of the PKK.
During the 2004 referendum on the Kofi Annan Plan, the Gray Wolves campaigned in support of a “no vote” for the unification of Cyprus and provoked riots and murders against supporters of a “no vote.”
Russia: In November 2015, a number of members of the Federation Council and a number of members of the Communist Party in the State Duma proposed banning the Gray Wolves Organization in Russia.
Crimea: In December 2015, press reports mentioned the start of cooperation between the nationalist Crimean Tatars and the Gray Wolves Organization. It has established a presence in southern Ukraine.
Chechnya: Members of the Turkish Gray Wolves fought alongside Chechen separatists during the First Chechen War (1994-1996) and the Second Chechen War (1999-2000) against the Russian army. CNN reported in 2000 in one of its reports, “It is widely believed that the Gray Wolves transported arms shipments to Chechnya, and the Turkish authorities may be aware of this.” The Azerbaijani Gray Wolves also participated in the Chechen war against Russia.
Syria: The Turkmen in Syria received military aid and fighters from members of the National Movement Party, and many of them were killed in battles with the Syrian army.
The presence of members of the Gray Wolves organization and those loyal to it dates back to the beginning of the Syrian crisis, so that the features of the Turkish conspiracy in Syria become clear. It was reported that Turkish intelligence coordinated between the Gray Wolves militias and the armed factions, and communicated with the commander of the “Turkmen Martyrs” Brigade, Adel Orly, who met with Turkish intelligence in Istanbul in 2014, which led to the unification of the Turkmen militias and the rest of the armed gangs under one banner, to accomplish the mission of manipulating the demographics of northern Syria. And restrictions on anti-Arabs and Kurds.
The “Intezaar” newspaper report revealed that the unified front was called the “Coast Corps,” and included the Turkmen Mountain Brigade, and the factions (Al-Muntasir Billah, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, the Sultan Selim Yavuz Division, the “Raiders 1071” Battalion), and others, and in a meeting held in Ankara in July. 2015 Another organization emerged called the “Second Coast Corps.”
After the liberation of Tel Abyad/Girê Spi, Ankara promoted the propaganda of demographic change and forced displacement of the Turkmen, to create a story of the oppression of the Turkmen and serve as a justification for intervention.
The Turkish occupation of Jarabulus on 8/24/2016 was not limited to the entry of the so-called “Free Army” into the city. Visits from Turkish officials continued, beginning the administrative change and Turkish control of the city, and revealing the presence of the Turkish “gray wolves” and Turkmen factions that were fighting in the name of the “army.” Al-Hurr, formerly in the Latakia countryside, the Idlib countryside, and others.
In Afrin, after two months of violent bombardment, and a host of crimes and violations against civilians and institutions, the occupation settled its loyalists and the families of militants coming from Eastern Ghouta, the Damascus countryside, and the countryside of Homs and Hama, as well as the Gray Wolves. In return, 350,000 Afrin residents were displaced. Olgay Klavoz, former head of the Gray Wolves Organization, stated: “We cannot leave the legacy of our ancestors in Syria and in Aleppo.”
On November 24, 2015, the Turkish Air Force shot down a Russian bomber near the Syrian-Turkish border. The pilot was killed while landing by parachute when weapons were fired at him by Turkmen rebels organized under the Syrian Turkmen Brigades. These brigades operate under the command of Alp Arslan Celik, a Turkish citizen and reportedly a member of the Gray Wolves.
Assassination of Kurdish lawyer Taher Alji, November 28, 2015
Thailand: The 2015 Bangkok bombing is suspected to have been carried out by the Gray Wolves because Thailand deported suspected Uighur terrorists to China instead of allowing them to travel to Turkey to obtain asylum.
France: In May 1984, the Archery Wolf leader blew up the monument commemorating the Armenian Genocide in Alfortville, a suburb of Paris.
According to a French intelligence report, members of the Gray Wolves participated in a demonstration in Paris in 2012 against the adoption of a draft law criminalizing denial of the Armenian genocide in France. According to information, one of the instigators of the demonstration fought in the Karabakh war in Chechnya and against American forces in Iraq after 2003.
Germany: The Gray Wolves are monitored by the German authorities as a Turkish right-wing extremist organization. The Turkish Federation is considered a Turkish organization operating in Germany and has a relationship with the Gray Wolves. It is accused of many murders and is subject to direct surveillance by the German intelligence establishment.
Although the organization denies any direct relationship with the Gray Wolves in Turkey or the Nationalist Movement Party, it nevertheless publishes a monthly magazine denouncing leftist and Kurdish organizations in Turkey and Germany.
In 2014, the newspaper Der Spiegel estimated that there were at least 10,000 Gray Wolves members. Its members engaged in attacks and clashes with Kurds in Germany.
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Some references and quotations
- Wikipedia World Encyclopedia
- Free Thought Magazine/First Issue
- Al-Mubtada newspaper/ Abeer Al-Adawi
- The Euro-Arab Center for Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence Studies/ Ahmed Habib Al-Samawi
- Ronahi newspaper/Raman Azad
- Daraj electronic journalist/ Sarkis Kassarjian
- Euro News/official website
- Al Hurra Channel
- France 24 channel
- Sky News Channel
