Twin car bombs took 53 lives in the border town of Reyhanli on May 11, 2013, in Turkey's deadliest ever attack against civilians. More than 100 people were injured and hundreds of buildings and cars destroyed. The ensuing public outcry was suppressed through a media gag order on reporting and commenting on the issue.

Two years after the attack, it was understood that Reyhanli was only a part of a series of complicated events that can be attributed to the battle between the movement of Fethullah Gulen and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. At the center of the storm lies Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT).

Several reports in the Turkish media implied that MIT was behind the Reyhanli attack. Many suspect that the AKP government, hoping to incite the US and Turkish public against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, had planned an attack on its own territory and murdered its own citizens. These allegations deepened already existing suspicions about MIT.

As the battle between the Gulen movement and the AKP intensified and the civil war in Syria took a turn for the worse with the mushrooming of militant jihadist networks and the expansion of the Islamic State (IS), events kept MIT at the center of the battle in the domestic as well as the regional arena.