How exactly Turkey sees the Islamic State (IS) has long been a bone of contention among both Turks and Turkey observers. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government claims it never supported IS and has condemned it as a terror group from the beginning. Others accuse the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan being too lenient on IS, at least until recently, saying the AKP saw IS as a bulwark against Kurdish gains in Syria. More heated voices in the Turkish opposition, including the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), even blame the AKP government for creating, arming and using IS for its own ends.
Much less attention is given, however, to how IS sees Turkey and the AKP. But IS wants to be heard on this, and on its Turkish-language website, online magazines and Twitter accounts, repeatedly condemns Turkish leaders as nothing but a flock of “apostates.” It also warns that the Turkish people will be soon punished for the attack on IS by “Erdogan the devil.”
The IS website in question is called Darul Hilafe, which means "Land of the Caliphate." It was hosted on the domain DarulHilafe.com but was blocked by Turkish authorities in July, along with a few other jihadist websites. The site was reopened quickly on the domain DarulHilafe.net, which was still up when this article was written. It is, of course, worth asking why the Turkish system, which can be very quick to block websites when the highest authorities are personally disturbed, is sluggish when it comes to other matters.
An Aug. 8 entry on Darul Hilafe addressed Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, or “the little devil.” (The term "tagut," which is used in the Quran to refer to the metaphysical devil, is common in Islamist parlance for despised political figures.) The sarcastic article condemned Davutoglu for trying to threaten IS by visiting a Turkish military post near the Syrian border. It also ridiculed Davutoglu for appearing among other world leaders, or taguts, at the Paris march held after the Charlie Hebdo massacre — an act IS, of course, praises.
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