Kurdish Hizbullah in Turkey

Many observers assume that Turkey's Kurdish question is limited to the war between the state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). For over three decades that conflict has defined the issue, causing the deaths of over 40,000 people. But there are many other layers to the onion; a broader variety of actors are implicated in Turkey's Kurdish question both on the surface and under the radar. 

Plenty of ink is spilled about the PKK, but relatively little is written about Hizbullah. The extremist Kurdish Sunni Islamist militant group (not to be confused with the Lebanese Shiite militants of Hezbollah) was particularly active during the 1990s, and its legacy continues in Turkey's southeast today. "Kurdish Hizbullah in Turkey" by Queen Mary University fellow Mehmet Kurt is a deeply researched and often unsettling new book.

Kurt's interest is personal, based in his experiences as a student in Mardin in the 1990s at a religious imam-hatip boarding school where Hizbullah was influential and where violence from Hizbullah-inspired students was commonplace. This personal connection gives Kurt extraordinary access to dozens of Hizbullah members past and present - repentant, unapologetic or confused. 

Hizbullah was established in the southeastern town of Batman prior to the 1980 military coup. Muslim Brotherhood influence was on the rise in Turkey through the Islamist Milli Görüş (National View) line, while violence between left and right was peaking and the PKK was emerging as a militant force. The 1979 Iranian Revolution poured fuel onto the fire, and Hizbullah members received organizational support and military training from Iran throughout the 1980s. Although Hizbullah was Sunni, the influence of the Shiite regime in Tehran was practical...