ISIS emerges as threat to Turkey
Most Turks would prefer that Ankara step back from its current Syria policies and distance itself from any support for jihadist groups.
Western governments have been worrying for some time now that jihadists in Syria, who traveled there from Europe to fight regime forces in the name of Islam rather than democracy, will be primed for terrorist attacks on targets in their countries of origin after they return home.
It appears, however, that rather than Western Europe, it is NATO member Turkey that militants from one of the most prominent of the al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadist groups fighting in Syria — namely, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) — have chosen as their first European target.
Turkish security forces are worried now that the attack on March 20 in the Central Anatolian province of Nigde — by three ISIS members, according to government officials — in which a policeman, a non-commissioned gendarmerie officer and a truck driver were killed, and five soldiers were wounded, may be the start of further attacks in Turkey by ISIS.
Officials have named the three young assailants — who were subsequently caught — as Muhammed Zekjiri, said to be from Macedonia, Benjamin Xu, who is originally from Germany but said to be an Albanian citizen, and Cendrim Ramadani, a Swiss citizen who reportedly originates from Kosovo.
