Photo of Turkish military from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:N%C3%A9rostrateurThe BBC's Sarah Rainsford refers to an ultra-nationalist gang known as Ergenekon.
This gang has allegedly been plotting to topple the Turkish government.
Thirty three alleged members of the gang were grabbed in a police raid in January 2008.
It is alleged that the gang's plan was to destabilise Turkey by assassinating a number of Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk.
Allegedly, this was supposed to lead to the military taking over Turkey in 2009.
According to the Hurriyet newspaper, a list of targets had been drawn up and a hitman hired.
Sabah newspaper linked the gang to the recent murder of three Protestant Christians and Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.
Those detained include retired Brig General Veli Kucuk, an alleged mafia boss.
In June 2007, a raid in Istanbul uncovered a large amount of hand grenades and explosives. A number of former military personnel were detained at that time.
The Ergenekon affair has been the top news in Turkish newspapers.
The newspapers refer to the 'deep state', namely the 'fascist' generals and members of the elite.
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In previous decades, the CIA and its friends in NATO are reported to have employed paramilitary gangs in order to keep the 'right wing' in power in Europe, including Turkey.
"Those structures still exist," claims newspaper columnist Cengiz Candar. ('Deep state plot' Coup rumours about rogue security officials set Turkey abuzz)
In 1996, a car crashed in the town of Susurluk. The car contained a senior police chief, a prominent politician and a wanted assassin.
According to Cengiz Candar, "Susurluk revealed weird connections between state officials and those who operate outside the limits of the law. It happened at a time when we had a lot of extra-judicial killings in Turkey."
"But the investigation stopped just as there was speculation it was reaching very sensitive spots, even the military establishment. That only confirmed the existence of these networks in the public consciousness." ('Deep state plot' Coup rumours about rogue security officials set Turkey abuzz)
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used the term "deep state" to describe the police operation against Ergenekon.
Erdogan is quoted as saying: "These gangs are not new in our country. Our aim is to get rid of them. We see gangs in the most important institutions. People who once worked in these institutions join these organisations .... There is a deep Turkey working against the deep state. This prevents them [the gangs] being as active as they once were."
The Turkish army's chief-of-staff, General Buyukanit, has defended the military, saying that "the Turkish military is not a criminal organisation." ('Deep state plot' Coup rumours about rogue security officials set Turkey abuzz )
Who is behind the terrorism in Turkey? Could it be fascists within the military?
The Economist, 22 December 2007, tells us about terror attacks on Christians in Turkey (The cross and the crescent):
In January 2007, Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian newspaper editor, was shot dead in Istanbul.
In April 2007, two Turks and a German, all Christian evangelists, were murdered in Malatya.
Husnu Ondul is president of the Turkish Human Rights Association.
Like many others, Ondul believes that the 'deep state', is behind the attacks.
The 'deep state' is made up of a few judges, army officers and security officials.
They need enemies to justify their grip on power.
Evidence leaked to the media in the Dink and Malatya cases points to collusion between the murderers and elements of the police and army.
The ruling Justice and Development (AK) party has treated Christians better than its secular predecessors did.
"The deep state is still in charge,” says a Christian priest.
Operation Gladio reportedly involved getting right-wing terrorists to carry out terrorist attacks in Europe and in Turkey, in order to keep right wing parties in power.
Operation Gladio was reportedly organised by Nato and the CIA.
"The CONTRA-GUERRILLAS, which were the GLADIO organisation in Turkey, were set up from the 1950s onwards and played a significant part in fascist governments during the modern history of Turkey, irrespective of whether these had a veneer of parliamentary democracy or were an overt military junta." http://www.stopthenato.org/m/zit/id_ses/2337520f9/id_p/10/opt/read_e/id_s/433.html
"Utilizing the fascist and ultra-nationalist National Action Party and its youth wing, the Gray Wolves, the Turkish 'Stay Behind' also resulted in the type of right-wing terror program and destabilization effort that it did in Italy." http://www.spitfirelist.com/f059.html
When the Islamist prime minister Necemettin Erbakan took power in 1996, the Turkish military, quickly eased him out of power.
In elections for the Turkish parliament on November 3, 2002, a new party formed out of a banned Islamic movement - the Justice and Development Party (AKP) - won 35 percent of the popular vote and 363 of the 550 seats.
This may have worried the Pentagon, Israel, the Turkish military and the Turkish drugs industry.
According to a report in The Jerusalem Post (http://www.hr-action.org/archive1/990225tjp1.html), intelligence cooperation between the Mossad and the Turkish security service, MIT, "was enshrined in a 12-clause agreement that was signed during a 1993 visit to Israel by then-Turkish foreign minister Hikmat Chetin".
Soon after, according to the London-based newsletter Foreign Report, a large Mossad operation was established in Turkey, with Mossad agents based in both Istanbul and Ankara.
In 2003, there was a major bombing attack in istanbul.
The Turkish Top Military Brass met Paul Wolfowitz one day before theIstanbul Attacks (http://globalresearch.ca/articles/ANA311A.html)
The two Istanbul attacks respectively on the HSBC in the financial district and on the British Consulate were, according to media reports "timed to coincide with President George Bush's state visit to London."
The attacks took place one day following the completion of the annual Turkish-US Joint Defense Group meeting (17-19 November 2003).
The British Consul General Roger Short, was killed by the bomb as he was entering the consulate building. Press reports confirmed that he had cancelled an appointment at the last minute and "if he had gone to his appointment, he would have been alive"
The attacks create conditions for Turkey's participation in the war on terrorism.
The attacks serve to strengthen the Anglo-American military axis and the legitimacy of Bush's "War on terrorism."
The Istanbul bombings also serve to uphold the shaky legitimacy of Prime Minister Tony Blair in the face of mounting political opposition to Britain's' participation in the US led war.
"A Turkish daily close to the ruling justice and development party quoted Turkish intelligence sources as saying that the Mossad had established the organization that launched the two attacks on 15th November, 2003." http://www.mediareviewnet.com/Zionist%20intelligence%20engineered%20Istanbul%20blasts.htm
Online Journal had an article about Turkey and drugs.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/062904Stanton/062904stanton.html
Turkey is a major refining and transit point for the flow of heroin from Southwest Asia to Western Europe.
Kendal Nezan, writing for Le Monde Diplomatique, has reported that MIT (the Turkish security services) and the Turkish National Police force were actively supporting the trade in illicit drugs not only for fun and profit, but out of desperation.
"After the Gulf War in 1991, Turkey found itself deprived of the all-important Iraqi market and, since it lacked significant oil reserves of its own, it decided to make up for the loss by turning more massively to drugs.
"The trafficking increased in intensity with the arrival of the hawks in power, after the death in suspicious circumstances of President Turgut Özal in April 1993.
"According to the minister of interior, the war in Kurdistan had cost the Turkish exchequer upwards of $12.5 billion.
"According to the daily Hürriyet, Turkey's heroin trafficking brought in $25 billion in 1995 and $37.5 billion in 1996 . . .
"Only criminal networks working in close cooperation with the police and the army could possibly organize trafficking on such a scale.
"Drug barons have stated publicly, on Turkish television and in the West, that they have been working under the protection of the Turkish government and to its financial benefit.
"The traffickers themselves travel on diplomatic passports.
"The drugs are even transported by military helicopter from the Iranian border."
The Middle East Report concluded in 1998 that probably the greatest strategic move in the Clinton post-Cold War years is what could be called "The Ankara Pact"—an alliance between the US, Turkey, and Israel that essentially circumvents and bottles up the Arab countries.
In 1998, Israeli, Turkish and American military forces engaged in exercises in the Mediterranean, according to Reuters and Agencie France Press.
"[These exercises] signal to the radical states in the region that there is a strong alliance between Israel, Turkey and the United States which they must fear."
Reports also indicated that the CIA and Pentagon intelligence organizations had regularly chaired meetings of Turkish and Israeli officers in Tel Aviv for years.
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