As ISIL puts Turkey on enemy list and targets Istanbul

A video message by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) hit social media in Turkey on the morning of Aug. 18. In the video, a man in his mid-forties, an apparent ISIL commander in a typical Jihadist outfit and calling himself ?Emir,? was speaking in fluent, urban Turkish without any apparent accent and calling people in Turkey to rise against the non-Muslim state in Turkey, denouncing Turkey?s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and current President Tayyip Erdo?an as ?evil? and asking Muslims to capture Istanbul from ?atheists? and the ?pawns of the crusaders.?

The fact that Atatürk and Erdo?an represent two different political understandings of modern Turkey, Atatürk being staunchly secular, patriotic and Western-oriented, Erdo?an highlighting Muslim characteristics rather than national one and Islamic world-oriented, did not matter for the - probably Turkish citizen - ISIL commander. The Turkish state was un-Islamic, so it had to be put down like all other un-Islamic ones.

It is not a surprise that the message came after the reveal of a deal between Ankara and Washington about Turkey?s opening up of its strategic Incirlik air base and also fully joining the U.S.-led coalition to fight ISIL in Syria and Iraq. Turkey had already put ISIL on its black list in 2013 but was criticized a lot in the West for turning a blind eye on ISIL?s recruitment of Western foreign fighters via its borders, because of Ankara?s main focus being the removal of Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria. Now, as Turkey takes a firmer position against ISIL, especially after an ISIL suicide bomber killed 33 people in the Turkish town of Suruç on the Syrian border on July 20, ISIL has sharpened its language against Turkey, and in Turkish, in order to not be misunderstood...