In Brief

• Founded: 1985 • Countries of Operation: Primarily Turkey (concentrated in Istanbul), with a small contingent in Europe (including Germany)  • Goal: The establishment of an Islamic state in Turkey • Suspected Affiliats: al-Qaida • Leader: Silah Izzet Erdis

The Great East Islamic Raiders Front (IBDA-C) is comprised of Turkish Sunni Salafists, a contingent roughly defined as those who are willing to take up arms for the faith of Islam.  Viewing Turkey’s secular regime as “illegal,” IBDA-C wishes to destroy the secular state and constitutional system and replace it with religious rule and law, first in Turkey, and then throughout the world.  The group has gone about asserting these goals by inflicting armed terror primarily on civilian targets.  IBDA-C shares ideological ties with al-Qaida.

IBDA-C was founded in 1985 as a breakaway faction of the National Salvation Party, at the time headed by Islamic fundamentalist Necmettin Erbakan, who would become Turkey’s first Islamist Prime Minister in 1995.  Despite Erbakan’s success, his more recent Welfare Party was banned by Turkey’s courts in 1997, and Erbakan was forced to step down after violating Turkey’s secular constitution.  IBDA-C carries on his pro-Islamic legacy with a newly-born radicalism that wishes to restore religious rule to Turkey with an added willingness to commit acts of terrorism.

IBDA-C borrows its core ideology from Turkish poet and historian Necip Fazil Kisakurek (1905-1983), who advocated a return to “pure Islamic values” and the restoration of a universal Islamic caliphate in the Muslim world.  He adopted a system of thought called “Buyuk Dogu,” an absolutist ideology promising to bring Muslims closer to success and salvation, with the central idea that truth is only accessible through the practice of Islam.  He also argued that the secular nature of Turkey was responsible for the state’s inability to ward off what he saw as Western Imperialism.  Kisakurek was seen as the pioneer of “ideal Islamic society” by the founders of IBDA-C.

IBDA-C’s leader is Salih Izzet Erdis (aka Salih Mirzabeyoglu, meaning “the commander”), a spiritual follower of Kisakurek.  Erdis was captured on Dec. 31, 1998, and sentenced to death in April 2001 for “attempting to overthrow Turkey’s secular state by force.”  His lawyer, Ahmet Arslan, maintained that his client was no more than “a man of thought,” arguing that there was a lack of concrete evidence supporting the charges.  Erdis’s death sentence was later commuted when Ankara abolished the death penalty in August 2002.

In August 2003, Erdis claimed responsibility for his crimes, and attributed his actions to “mind control,” seeking help from the Forensic Medicine Institute in Turkey.  But any quest Erdis may have had for clemency was denied in March 2004, when a Turkish court issued Erdis a 20-year prison sentence for using handmade explosives and weapons in a riot against authorities at Metris Prison.

Although Erdis remains in prison, IBDA-C has continued its activities, being most heavily active in the Istanbul region, attacking bars, discotheques, and churches.

Members of IBDA-C don’t operate under any defined hierarchical structure, and carry out actions in small independent groups that are united behind their common goals and ideologies.

In December 2001, IBDA-C was labeled an “illegal organization” by the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.  Meanwhile, in April 2003, the U.S. Department of State (DoS) designated the group as a “terrorist group” in their annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report.

In November 2003, both IBDA-C and al-Qaida claimed responsibility for twin attacks in Istanbul.  The first was a suicide car bomb attack on two major synagogues that left 15 dead and over 100 injured.  The second, occurring only a few days later, was a similar suicide bombing operation, one on the U.K. consulate and another on a U.K.-based HSBC bank branch, which killed at least 27 people.  The United Kingdom’s perceived role in the breakup of the Ottoman Empire may explain IBDA-C’s desire to attack British interests.

These attacks provide the strongest implication of ties between IBDA-C and al-Qaida, although the exact nature of their cooperation remains unclear.  Al-Qaida may have acted merely as an outside support base, or possibly in tandem with IBDA-C in terms of planning and execution.  Some, on the other hand, assert that IBDA-C had no involvement at all; contradicting reports from the Turkish media solely credit al-Qaida with the attacks, implying that IBDA-C did not have the means to carry out such a sophisticated act of terrorism.  Indeed, IBDA-C showed no willingness to exercise suicide terrorism prior to November 2003.  Regardless of whether or not IBDA-C actively participated in these particular attacks, the attention received provided the group with a heightened level of international infamy, as they were previously not well known at the global level.

Despite al-Qaida’s similar aims and superior stature as an international terrorist organization, IBDA-C views itself as the quintessential Islamic revivalist movement toward which all others should dedicate their resources.

In addition to committing terrorist attacks, the organization also produces propagandist literature put out in bookstores and on the Internet, which has the potential to attract new members, including those from other countries.

In December 2003, the German newspaper, Der Spiegel, reported that the group could count on as many as 600 supporters in Germany.  In another report regarding the possible German contingent, a Turkish rail worker claimed, “Istanbul was nothing.  The major butchery is yet to come.”  Although IBDA-C is thought to have supporters throughout Western Europe, the group has not performed any significant terrorist attacks there since their alleged actions in Istanbul.  The number of extremist supporters actively participating in IBDA-C’s terrorist plots is not known, but thought to be small.

IBDA-C has kept relatively quiet in 2004, although seven members of the group were indicted in June for the murder of a Turkish cult leader, Col. Ihsan Guven and his wife.  Burak Cileli, one of the defendants, is said to have described Guven contemptuously in IBDA-C literature, calling him a “pervert,” a “Jewish sympathizer,” and “pro-American.”  The accused were apparently angered that the murders were not immediately reported by the press, claiming that they also had plans to attack a TV talk show host and columnist named Savas Ay in order to heighten publicity for their organization.

IBDA-C is not an organization to be taken lightly, but it can perhaps be said to have a dubious future as its leader, Erdis, sits in prison, and the group has no clearly defined hierarchical structure.  By the same token, the lack of organized centrality makes the group more elusive and difficult to eliminate, much like al-Qaida.  IBDA-C will continue to be a threat if it is able to sustain external spheres of support, especially from other terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida.

Sources

“IBDA-C Leader Sentenced to 20 Years,” Turkish Daily News, March 26, 2004.

“Patterns of Global Terrorism 1998,” Department of State.

“Seven Turkish Islamist militants indicted for murdering cult leader, wife,” BBC Monitoring Europe – Political, June 16, 2004.

“Turkey blasts bring radical Islamist group out of shadows,” Agence France Presse, Nov. 20, 2003.

“Turkey: Court sentences Islamic rebel leader to death,” BBC Monitoring Europe – Political, April 4, 2001.

“Turkish ‘extremist’ tells German TV: “Major butchery is yet to come,” BBC Monitoring Europe – Political, Dec. 1, 2003.

“Turkish Cypriots ban activities of ‘illegal organizations’,” BBC Monitoring Europe – Political, Dec. 27, 2001.

Leyla Linton, “Straw Accuses al-Qaida of Istanbul Suicide Bombings; Terror at the Consulate,” The Independent, Nov. 21, 2003.

Onay Yilmaz, “Turkey: IBDA-C Leader Mirzabeyoglu Claims Subjected to ‘Mind Control’,” Global News Wire, Aug. 13, 2003.

Raman, B., “Istanbul: The Enemy Within,” Free Republic, Nov. 22, 2003.

Yoni Fighel, “The Great East Islamic Raiders Front,” Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Center for Special Studies, December 2003.