https://intelnews.org/2017/01/18/01-2045/   
      
   Leaked EU intelligence report says Islamists were not behind Turkey coup   
      
   January 18, 2017 by Joseph Fitsanakis 2 Comments    
      
   A leaked report by a European Union intelligence body states that Islamist   
   forces were not behind last July’s failed coup in Turkey, and that the   
   ruling party used the coup to neutralize its few remaining political rivals.   
   The government of Turkish    
   President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses members of the so-called Gülen   
   movement of orchestrating the coup, which included an armed attack on the   
   country’s parliament and the murder of over 200 people across Turkey. The   
   Gülen movement consists of    
   supporters of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who runs a global network of   
   schools, charities and businesses from his home in the United States. The   
   government of Turkey has designated Gülen’s group a terrorist organization   
   and claims that its members    
   have stealthily infiltrated state institutions since the 1980s.   
      
   But a report compiled by the EU Intelligence and Situation Centre, known as   
   IntCen, states that Gülenists had nothing to do with the coup, and that the   
   current crackdown against them by the government was planned years in advance.   
   Founded in 2012,    
   IntCen is the intelligence-sharing body of the EU. Its reports are the results   
   of collaborative efforts of intelligence officers from all EU states. They are   
   distributed on a confidential basis to senior EU officials and to the   
   ambassadors of EU states    
   in Brussels, Belgium. The report on the coup in Turkey is entitled “Turkey:   
   The Impact of the Gülenist Movementâ€�. It was issued on August 24 and is   
   marked “confidentialâ€�. But it was accessed by British newspaper The Times,   
   which published    
   extracts on Tuesday.   
      
   According to the leaked document, it is “unlikelyâ€� that the Gülen   
   movement had the “capabilities and capacitiesâ€� to launch a coup against   
   Erdogan. It is even more unlikely, it suggests, “that Gülen himself played   
   a roleâ€� in the operation. A    
   far more plausible explanation is that the coup was launched by a relatively   
   small group of Kemalists (secular Turks who oppose President Erdogan’s   
   religiously-based politics), some Gülenists, and various opportunists within   
   the ranks of the military.    
   Once the coup began to unfold, a few low-level military officers with   
   Gülenist sympathies may have “felt under pressureâ€� to participate in   
   order to ensure its success. That was mostly because they knew that, if the   
   coup failed, the Erdogan    
   government would go after them and accuse them of staging it, states the   
   report.   
      
   Indeed, once the coup failed, the Erdogan administration launched a   
   coordinated campaign designed to dismantle the Gülen movement, which was its   
   â€œone and only real rivalâ€� in Turkey. Since the end of the failed coup, the   
   Turkish state has initiated a    
   nationwide political crackdown against alleged supporters of the coup. An   
   estimated 100,000 people have been fired from their jobs, while hundreds of   
   thousands have been demoted, censured or warned. Another 35,000 are believed   
   to be in prison, charged    
   with supporting the failed coup or with being members of the Gülen network.   
   But the IntCen report suggests that the crackdown against Erdogan’s   
   opponents had been conceived and designed years in advance. Last July’s coup   
   acted as a catalyst and was â   
   €œexploitedâ€� by the government to neutralize all its political opponents,   
   says IntCen. The lists used to arrest individuals across the country had been   
   complied by the Turkish intelligence services many years ahead of the failed   
   coup, according to the    
   IntCen report.   
      
   ? Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 January 2017 | Permalink   
      
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