Investigators at the scene discovered that Çatlı possessed eight national identity cards, each with a different alias. One card, bearing an official stamp over Çatlı's photo, identified him as Mehmet Ozkay, the same alias Mehmet Ali Ağca had used in his travels. They also found that Çatlı held two diplomatic passports and a gun permit that had been approved by Mehmet Ağar, Turkey's interior minister. Weapons were also found in the car, including a couple of pistols, several machine guns, and a set of silencers. Adding to the mystery, the police uncovered evidence that someone had tampered with the brakes of Çatlı's black Mercedes 600.2
NASTY FINDINGS
The “Susurluk incident” struck Turkey with the same force as the Watergate scandal in Nixon's America. Çatlı's identity cards and passports offered proof that he was connected to the highest offices in the country. And the dead body of Kocadağ, one of Turkey's top law enforcement officials, gave credence to the suspicion that Çatlı had remained protected by the law, even when he was committing acts of unbridled terrorism, including the Bahçelievler Massacre, on Turkish soil.3
In the months that followed the crash in Susurluk, documents were leaked, commissions were set up, and witnesses were located. Marc Grossman, the US Ambassador to Turkey, who allegedly was assisting Çatlı and the activities of the derin devlet (“the deep state”) within Turkey, was mysteriously removed from the post as ambassador despite the fact that he had almost two years left to serve in his position. Grossman had been the handler for the Grey Wolves, the Gladio unit in which Çatlı had been a member. He also met regularly with leading Turkish babas and Turkish intelligence officials.4 Shortly before his departure from the ambassadorial post, Grossman had been served a secret warrant from the Susurluk Commission, which sought his testimony concerning the CIA's involvement with illegal Turkish paramilitary operations in Central Asia and the Caucasus.5 Other leading US dignitaries vanished from their posts in Ankara, including Major Douglas Dickerson, who procured weapons from the United States for various Central Asian and Middle Eastern governments.6
The Susurluk Commission, set up by Turkey's Parliament in January 1997, discovered that the knot tying together the Turkish government and organized crime had been tightened by the Turkish National Security Council's decision to marshal all of the country's resources to combat the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group that sought to create an independent Marxist-Leninist state known as Kurdistan from a vast tract of land encompassing eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, and northeastern Syria. Turkey's deputy prime minister Tansu Çiller had directed the national police force, under Mehmet Ağar, to launch a series of attacks against the PKK and to assassinate its leaders. To assist in the assassinations, Çiller and other government officials had secured the services of Abdullah Çatlı, who was, at the time, safe and secure in Chicago and in the employ of the CIA.7
But the Commission was only able to scratch the surface of the secret government operating in Turkey. On December 7, 1997, Mesut Yılmaz, the newly elected prime minister, said, “We can't do better than to obtain twenty to twenty-five percent of the truth. Civil servants failed to provide us with evidence, or the documents are forged.”8
A MIRACLE AND A MISSION
After fleeing from St. Peter's Square, Çatlı had been arrested for drug smuggling in Switzerland and, in 1987, placed in a maximum security prison. He didn't remain long in the lockup. One night, he managed to escape when the doors to his cell and his cellblock suddenly opened and a NATO helicopter mysteriously appeared to whisk him away. In 1989, he appeared in England, where—although one of the world's most wanted fugitives—he was granted a British passport.9
Çatlı's strange story became stranger. In 1991, he arrived in Chicago, married an American while assuming his Ozkay identity, and was granted a green card. The US immigration officials seemed to be blissfully unaware that he was a prison escapee, a convicted murderer, a known terrorist implicated in the attempted murder of the pope, and a notorious baba who ran the world's largest drugs-for-arms racket.10
From Chicago, Çatlı was sent on US intelligence missions by the CIA to the newly created republics in Central Asia that had been part of the Soviet Union. Within these countries, he initiated acts of terrorism, including an armed insurrection to topple the government of Heydar Aliyev in Azerbaijan.11 Çatlı also made trips to the Chinese province of Xinjiang where he helped the Uyghurs (the Turkish-speaking Muslims living in northwestern China) mount insurrectionary attacks that killed 162 people.12 For his travels, Çatlı was issued a US passport under the name of Michael Nicholsan.13
At Çatlı's funeral, an event that attracted over five thousand Grey Wolves, Meral Aydoğan Çatlı, the wife of the deceased thug, said, “My husband worked for the state. Twenty-two days after the coup on September 12, 1980, the military leaders sent him abroad for training. Then the state helped him escape from the Swiss prison.”14 Çatlı's coffin, draped in a Turkish flag, was lowered into the ground to the chanting of cries: “Allah is great.”15
CIA'S FANTASYLAND
Çatlı's acts of political agitation among the Uyghurs were designed to further the CIA's goal of transforming the Chinese province into a new Islamic republic, which the Agency had named East Turkistan. Since Xinjiang remained the primary source of oil and natural gas for much of mainland China, the creation of East Turkistan would serve to deprive the country of its vital natural resources, making China considerably less of an economic and political threat to the United States and the Western world. The Tarim Basin in the southern half of Xinjiang contained as much crude oil as Saudi Arabia.16
The new country was officially formed in Washington, DC, on September 14, 2004. Amidst the waving of American and Uyghur flags, Anwar Yusuf Turani, the prime minister, spoke of the new country's need of economic assistance and international recognition. Following the speech, Turani returned to his home—not in Xinjiang but in Fairfax, Virginia.17
OTTOMAN DREAMS
The US military-industrial complex's struggle for world control now centered on this region of China and the “stan” countries throughout Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.18 In 1998, Zbigniew Brzezinski expressed the vital importance of the United States gaining control of these countries, writing:
The world's energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the US Department of Energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.19
The inhabitants of these republics, including the mythical East Turkistan, spoke the Turkish language, upheld the Turkish culture, and shared the Turkish version of Islam. It didn't take an Einstein to realize that the vast area that stretched from the Anatolian plains to the Great Wall of China could only be united by the Pan-Turkish movement. Such a movement could not emanate from NATO headquarters, let alone Langley, Virginia. The republics continued to share a strong anti-Western animus, along with a deep suspicion of the United States that had been fostered by decades of Soviet control. For the United States, control of that region's vast resources could only be obtained by employing Turkey as a proxy. Sibel Edmonds, the FBI's former Turkish translator and a renowned whistleblower explains:
You've got to look at the big picture. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the super powers began to fight over control of Central Asia, particularly the oil and gas wealth, as well as the strategic value of the region.
Given the history, and the distrust of the West, the US realized that it couldn't get direct control, and therefore would need to use a proxy to gain control quickly and effectively. Turkey was t
he perfect proxy; a NATO ally and a puppet regime…
This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.
This is why I have been saying repeatedly that these illegal covert operations by the Turks and certain US persons dates back to 1996, and involves terrorist activities, narcotics, weapons smuggling and money laundering, converging around the same operations and involving the same actors.
And I want to emphasize that this is “illegal” because most, if not all, of the funding for these operations is not congressionally approved funding, but it comes from illegal activities.20
PAN TURKISM
During the Cold War, a Pan-Turkish movement was unleashed by Col. Alparslan Türkeş, the Gladio commander in Turkey, who upheld a belief in Turkish racial superiority. He envisioned the restoration of the Ottoman Empire from the collapse of the Soviet Union, which kept the Turkish peoples of Central Asia in political and economic bondage. The Grey Wolves, the “youth military unit” formed by Türkeş, were named after the legendary wolves that led the scattered Turkish tribes out of Asia to their homeland in Anatolia. This task did not seem daunting. Thanks to Gladio, the CIA had controlled Turkish affairs for decades. Çatlı, as a disciple of Türkeş, was an extremely useful agent provocateur—an operative capable by expanding both the drug trade and the strategy of tension within Xinjiang and Central Asia.
Throughout the 1990s, hundreds of Uyghurs were transported to Afghanistan by the CIA for training in guerrilla warfare by the mujahideen. When they returned to Xinjiang, they formed the East Turkistan Islamic Movement and came under Çatlı's expert direction.21 Graham Fuller, CIA superspy, offered this explanation for radicalizing the Chinese Muslims:
The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them [Muslims] against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia.22
This policy of destabilization was devised by Bernard Lewis, an Oxford University specialist on Islamic studies, who called for the creation of an “Arc of Crisis” around the southern borders of the Soviet Union by empowering Muslim radicals to rebel against their Communist overlords.23
KILL THE KURDS
The car crash at Susurluk was a setback to the plans to mount a strategy of tension that would fuel the Pan-Turkish movement. The killing of the Kurds, who had their own plans for Central Asia, was a key factor in accomplishing this objective. The Kurds were a major stumbling block to the unification of Central Asia. They were not Turks but Iranians (Persians). They had a different culture from Turks, spoke a different language (Kurdish), and practiced a different form of Sunni Islam. This latter fact was reflected in the Turkish saying, “Compared to the unbeliever, the Kurd is a Muslim.”24 The Kurds were oil-rich and their leaders were Marxists. And they were violent. Clashes between the PKK and the Turkish government had resulted in the deaths of thirty-seven thousand people.25 The problem with these different and difficult people had to be settled before the strategy of tension could be fully implemented in the new republics. In the weeks before Çatlı's death, ninety-one leading Kurdish businessmen were murdered, including Ömer Lütfü Topal, the “king of the gambling joints.” Topal was killed on July 28, 1996. Çatlı's fingerprints were found on the Kalashnikov rifle that was discovered at the crime scene.26
Planning the attacks against the Kurds had brought together Çatlı, Turkey's leading fugitive, and Hüseyin Kocadağ, Turkey's leading police official, in a remote area of the Anatolian plains. Çatlı's death was unfortunate, mainly because of the adverse publicity it created for the MIT, Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, which remained bound to the CIA.27 Marc Grossman, the leading US official in Turkey, had served as a nexus that united Turkey's criminal and law enforcement elements. But Çatlı's replacement was already in the wings in the form of a Muslim preacher named Fethullah Gülen.
NEW LEAD ACTOR
Fethullah Gülen, who presently governs one of the world's “most powerful and best-connected” Muslim networks,28 has been said to be the “strongest and most effective Islamic fundamentalist in Turkey”—an individual who “camouflages his methods with a democratic and moderate image.”29 His movement, which seeks to create a New Islamic World Order, has amassed approximately ten million supporters—many of whom contribute between 5 percent and 20 percent of their income to his movement—and his tentacles stretch from Central Asia to the United States.30 With an estimated $50 billion in assets,31 the reclusive Islamist reportedly controls over one thousand schools in 130 countries, along with political action groups, newspapers (including Zaman, Turkey's leading daily), television and radio stations, universities, a massive conglomerate called Kaynak Holding, and even a centralized bank.32
Gülen was a student and follower of Sheikh Sa'id-i Kurdi (1878–1960), also known as Sa'id-i Nursi, the founder of the Islamist Nur (light) movement. After Turkey's war of independence, Kurdi demanded, in an address to the new parliament, that the new republic be based on Islamic principles.33 Gülen advanced these principles in his sermons and teachings. In 1979, he issued this exhortation: “Muslims should become bombs and explode, tear to pieces the heads of the infidels, even if it's America opposing them.”34 During the 1980s, Gülen worked with the Grey Wolves and the CIA in covert operations against the PKK and other Communist groups. His primary contact with the Agency was Morton Abramowitz, who later became the US ambassador to Turkey.35
By 1990, Gülen had emerged as a key CIA asset and began to establish over 350 mosques and madrassahs throughout Turkey and Central Asia, paid for with black funds from the drug trade. His financial resources and political influence continued to increase, until Gülen had become one of the most powerful figures in Turkey: an imam with millions of followers and seemingly limitless financial resources.36 Few figures on the world's stage assumed a more important role in the unfolding saga that became known as Gladio II.
Throughout the 1990s, the CIA sought to soften Gülen's image. The Muslim preacher was presented not as a militant Islamist but as a humanitarian devoted to the Muslim ideal of Hizmet—altruistic service for the common good. This image was furthered by a plethora of articles and books—allegedly penned by Gülen—from a self-publishing company. Photo ops were arranged so the imam could appear in public with other religious dignitaries, including Greek Orthodox patriarch Bartholomeos and Israeli Sephardic head rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron. He was also granted a private audience with Pope John Paul II, who was blithely unaware of Gülen's tirades against the Holy See. In one of Gülen's sermons, the impassioned pasha had cried: “Till this day, Catholic missionaries and the Vatican have been behind all atrocities. The Vatican is the hole of the snake, the hole of the viper.”37
SAFE WITH UNCLE SAM
In 1998, Gülen fled to the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania in order to avoid prosecution on charges that he was attempting to undermine Turkey's secular government. He was described in the indictment as the “strongest and most effective Islamic fundamentalist in Turkey,” a person who “camouflages his methods with a democratic and moderate image”38 The Turkish court document further said that Gülen had established a network of schools as a front for a sinister plan. “Mr. Gülen was planning to use the young people whom he brainwashed at his own schools to set up his Islamic state,” the indictment maintained.39
One year later, Gülen was implicated by Uzbekistan authorities in the attempted assassination of Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan and the head of the Uzbek Communist Party. The same authorities uncovered Gülen's CIA connections. The seventy teachers he had sent to his schools in Uzbekistan held US diplomatic status and red and green diplomatic passports and traveled under
the aegis of a mysterious organization called “US Friendship Bridge.”40 All of Gülen's madrassahs in Uzbekistan were closed and eight journalists, who had graduated from his schools, were found guilty of engaging in seditious activities.41
After his arrival in Pennsylvania, FBI and Homeland Security officials made numerous attempts to deport Gülen. But in 2008 a federal court ruled that Gülen was a person of “extraordinary ability in the field of education” who merited permanent residency status in the United States.42 This ruling struck many as odd, since Gülen lacked a high-school education, spoke little or no English, and had never penned an article or book on the subject of education. Odder still was the appearance of prominent US officials in court, offering testimony on Gülen's behalf. The dignitaries included former CIA officials Graham Fuller and George Fidas, along with former US ambassadors to Turkey Morton Abramowitz and Marc Grossman.43
A PRIVATE ARMY
At his mountain fortress in Saylorsburg, Gülen remains guarded by a small army of followers, who follow their hocaefendi's (respected teacher's) orders and refrain from marrying until age fifty, per his instructions. The guards wear suits and ties rather than the traditional Turkish Islamic attire of cloaks and turbans. Yet, when they are married, their spouses are obliged to dress in the Islamic manner, as dictated by Gülen himself.44
The Pocono property contains a massive chalet, surrounded by a recreational center, dormitories, a helicopter pad, and a firing range. Sentries are stationed at a small hut at the main entranceway identifying the property as the Golden Generation Worship and Retreat Center. Within this sentry post are plasma television screens, projecting high-resolution images from the security cameras throughout the twenty-eight-acre compound. Gülen purportedly lives on the third floor of the chalet but never appears in public, not even when the national news shows up at his door.45
Operation Gladio Page 30