State authority and Turkish Hizbullah

In the 1990s the group, whose members are mostly of Kurdish descent, was responsible for hundreds of deaths in the region. Most victims are believed to have had ties with the PKK, but liberal intellectuals and moderate Islamists were also targeted. Many of the victims were filmed and recorded being tortured before their execution.

As a result of the massive operations launched in 2001, around 10,000 Hizbullah members were tried. Currently about 2,000 to 3,000 are being held in jail.

Since then Hizbullah, which is mainly active in the eastern and the southeastern regions of Turkey, in addition to having branches in some European countries, has reportedly been concentrating on extreme religious propaganda activities while attempting to avoid police scrutiny. "Hizbullah has recruited many lawyers who help its members avoid breaching the law. But this group remains a potential terrorist organization that is watched very closely by the counterterrorism experts," said one intelligence officer.

Turkish police sees no linkage between the Turkish Hizbullah and the Lebanese Hezbullah, but in the past, they suggest, it has had contacts with Iran's Hezbollah. However, Turkish intelligence sources say that it is unclear at the moment whether or not Turkish Hizbullah is currently in contact with its Iranian counterpart.

Turkey's Hizbullah does not seem to have any cooperation with the radical Islamic terrorist organization al-Qaeda; the latter has separate cells in operation on Turkish soil. Though Turkish intelligence sources have not seen an armed violent terrorist incidents launched by Hizbullah in the recent past, they have been voicing concerns about Hizbullah's implicit and explicit propagandistic attempts to promote radical Islam.

Hizbullah has been operating the Diyarbakır-based organization the Mustazaf Association (Those Oppressed). They have around 20 branches in the eastern and southeastern regions of the country. Their Web site is SusanınGulleri.com an initially gives the impression of being purely a religious site.

Hizbullah's main target, says an intelligence source, is the current ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Despite the Islamic background of the ruling party, its pro-Western policies are disliked by this terrorist group.

Some sectors of the Turkish state are well aware that increasing the presence of the state in the eastern and the southeastern regions will put pressure on both the PKK and Hizbullah. For example, one of the steps Turkey has taken to curb Hizbullah's violent acts Turkey has been to end a policy of appointing uneducated prayer leaders (imams) not affiliated to the Religious Affairs Directorate. It was discovered that in the early 2000s that many Hizbullah supporters had been active in the mosques with the help that they had been receiving from imams with no background education.

The practice of appointing such imams was ended by the state and properly educated religious leaders were brought in to address the religious needs of the population on a formal level. The state has also sought to manage such fragile regions by introducing social, economic and political measures; seeing such action as equally important in halting the activities of these terrorist organizations.

According to the intelligence sources that I have spoken with, the more the Turkish state addressed the primary economic needs of the peoples in the region, the less Hizbullah has been able to take up arms. However, their weapons have only been laid down and can be taken up again if the organization senses weakness in the state.