Who are 'Allah's lions'?
A mysterious security force has taken the lead in operations in Turkey’s Kurdish areas, raising alarm with its heavy-handed methods and seemingly religious motivation.
For several months now, Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast seems to have been thrown back to the 1990s, a period marked by gross human rights violations, as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) pushes a new strategy extending armed confrontations to urban areas.
The bloody unrest in cities and towns has followed a distinct pattern: PKK militants first dig trenches in various neighborhoods and then proclaim the area an “autonomous region.” The local governor subsequently responds by imposing a round-the-clock curfew, which not only bars residents from going out but completely cuts off the area, making it off-limits to the media and any nonresidents, as the security forces move in to purge the PKK militants.
