Country Reports on Terrorism 2012

internet and how they are influenced by what they read. The Swedish National Defense College
was drafting a report on foreign fighters that will include suggestions on preventive measures.
Under the auspices of the EU’s Community Policing Preventing Radicalization and Terrorism
(COPPRA) project, the Swedish National Police continued to work to increase knowledge to
detect radicalization and added sessions on the topic on the curricula for National Police
Academy students. The education material from COPPRA that was translated into Swedish has
been used during training sessions to educate police officers who now will “train the trainers” for
a wider distribution throughout Sweden.
TURKEY
Overview: Turkey is a long-standing counterterrorism partner of the United States. It co-chairs
the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) with the United States, and received U.S. assistance
to address the terrorist threat posed by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 2012.
The limited definition of terrorism under Turkish law, restricted to activities targeting the
Turkish state and its citizens, represented an impediment to effective action by Turkey against
global terrorist networks. For example, although Turkish police temporarily detained several al-
Qa’ida (AQ)-affiliated operatives attempting to transit through Turkey illegally in 2012, Turkish
authorities chose to deport these individuals to their countries of origin quickly rather than
pursue domestic legal action against them, at least in part because of the lack of appropriate legal
tools.
In 2012, Turkey faced a significant internal terrorist threat and has taken strong action in
response. Most prominent among terrorist groups in Turkey is the PKK. Composed primarily of
ethnic Kurds with a nationalist agenda, the PKK operates from areas in southeastern Turkey and
northern Iraq and targets mainly Turkish security forces. Other prominent terrorist groups in
Turkey include the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C), a militant
Marxist-Leninist group with anti-U.S. and anti-NATO views that seeks the violent overthrow of
the Turkish state, and Turkish Hizballah (unrelated to the similarly-named Hizballah that
operates in Lebanon). Public sources also highlighted detentions of Islamic Jihad Union
members as well as supporters of AQ and other groups. The Turkish Workers’ and Peasants’
Liberation Army, though largely inactive, was also considered a potential threat by the Turkish
government.
2012 Terrorist Incidents: The PKK continued to demonstrate its nation-wide reach. Typical
tactics, techniques, and procedures included ambushes of military patrols in the countryside,
improvised explosive devices (IEDs) along known military or police routes, and bombings of
both security and civilian targets in urban areas. According to the NATO Centre of Excellence-
Defence Against Terrorism in Ankara, there were 226 terrorist incidents reported through
November. The following 12 attacks garnered particular attention and condemnation:
On March 1, an explosion near the ruling party's headquarters in Istanbul wounded at
least 16 people, most of them policemen traveling by bus. No claim of responsibility was
issued.
On March 5, a small bomb exploded near the Turkish Prime Ministry building in Ankara
about an hour before a cabinet meeting was scheduled; one person was injured.
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