Secular Turkey has been attempting to “garner support from Islamic fundamentalists” since at least the 1950s. Eventually those attempts will reach the foundations of the state itself.
From Middle East Newsline, with thanks to Ali Dashti:
WASHINGTON [MENL] — Turkey, said to have enabled at least 1,000 of its nationals to fight Russian troops in Chechnya, might be the target of an Islamic blowback.
A report by the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation said many of the Turkish fighters who fought in Bosnia and Chechnya could return to Turkey where they were expected to organize sleeper cells. These cells could combine Al Qaida-inspired doctrine with the military capabilities of the Turkish combat veterans.
Evidence of the blowback appeared during the spate of bombings in Istanbul in November 2003, the report said. The bombings were said to have been carried out by an Islamic insurgency network inspired by Al Qaida or a leading operative, Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi.
The report, entitled “Turkey’s Al Qaida Blowback,” asserted that Ankara began to encourage the departure of Islamic volunteers for the war in Bosnia in 1992. Turkey, pressed by the United States, sent funds to the volunteers to fight Serbs in the war in Yugoslavia in an effort meant to garner domestic support for Turkish nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists.