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Will Mevlut Mert Altintas be remembered as a 21st-century Gavrilo Princip?
Will Mevlut Mert Altintas be remembered as a 21st-century Gavrilo Princip?

It could have been a still from a Quentin Tarantino movie: the image of a photogenic young man -- armed and dangerous, and impeccably dressed in a dark suit and white shirt -- surrounded by an audience of TV cameras and smartphones, went viral in minutes.

He shouted in fury while the body of his dead victim lay motionless in the background. His right hand tensed by his side, clutching a gun. His left raised skyward to denote "Tawhid" (the oneness of God), usurping the traditional Muslim symbol for declaring God's unity in prayer, long since subverted by jihadists across the world.

In fact, he got it wrong. He should have raised his right hand, but it had just been used for murder and was otherwise engaged. Even this mistake seemed somehow to encapsulate our posttruth age. It was terrorism of the most contemporary kind, likely not conducted by a well-indoctrinated holy warrior, but by a frustrated, hopeless young man.

Mevlut Mert Altintas, a 22-year-old policeman from Ankara, had just shot dead Andrei Karlov, Russia's ambassador to Turkey. His motives in the December 19 killing seemed clear enough as he shouted a series of religious and political slogans, beginning with an Arabic hadith (an ancient text that reportedly recorded some of the teachings and acts of the Prophet Muhammad) from Sahih al-Bukhari that referenced the Battle of the Trench (Ghazwah al-Khandaq‎) in which Muhammad and a band of followers tactically overcame a numerically superior army.

The assassin then laid out his grievances in Turkish. "Don't forget Aleppo; don't forget Syria. Don't forget Aleppo; don't forget Syria," he raged. "Until our provinces are safe and secure, you will not taste security," he continued, ordering the crowd to "stay back" before completing his diatribe: "Only death will make me leave this place; and whoever has played a role in this brutality will have to give an account for their actions."

The massive bombing campaign Russia carried out against the Syrian city of Aleppo, allowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces to reclaim the city from rebels, was clearly at the heart of the assassination. Russia killed thousands of Syrians in Aleppo; Altintas killed a Russian official in response, shooting him first in the back, for a reported total of nine times.

This has been a year of tumult, unexpected political events, and geopolitical uncertainty -- including Brexit, the U.S. presidential election, the continuing global refugee crisis, massacre in Syria and Yemen, and more Russian aggression in Ukraine. Fears that the world is in a pre-1914 period -- slowly drifting toward war -- are rife. Then, an assassination became the spark that caused World War I. Now many are asking whether the killing of a Russian ambassador could be an "Archduke Ferdinand moment."

The answer is an unequivocal "no," at least not in the way that some may conceive it. Far from being a source of increased tension between Turkey and Russia, bringing the two countries closer to war, Karlov's assassination could bring them closer together and have repercussions on the ongoing war against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.

Gift To Erdogan

For Turkey, the assassination can be seen as a gift to its increasingly autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who in July crushed an alleged attempted coup against his rule that Ankara claims was orchestrated by the U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen is accused of leading what Turkish officials have labeled the Gulenist Terrorist Organization (FETO), and following the botched coup attempt thousands of officials, from the army to the judiciary to even the education system, were arrested or expelled from their posts, accused by the government of being "Gulenists."

Now, in the wake of Karlov's killing, which Gulen has condemned, Ankara has wasted little time laying the blame squarely at the feet of his followers, informing the United States on December 20 that it believed they were responsible.

Erdogan will now have even more of an excuse to purge supposed Gulenists from all branches of government and state apparatuses. A foreign diplomat has been killed: he has a blank check on which to write the names of yet more of those who oppose him. He will only become stronger now.

But his alliance to the United States may become even weaker, a process that has been ongoing for some time but was made worse by the failed coup attempt. Turkey is a NATO ally, but the United States has been slow to act on Ankara's demand that Gulen be extradited immediately to face trial in Turkey over his alleged role in the coup attempt, which the cleric denies.

Green Light For Moscow

As far as Moscow is concerned, the picture, perhaps counterintuitively, could be more advantageous. The killing of a Russian diplomat on Turkish soil is hugely embarrassing to Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin now has significant political leverage over him. The Turkish president is in his debt. The two have had closer relations since the July coup attempt. Instead of that process being interrupted, it will likely gather momentum.

Interestingly, Russian media coverage of the assassination reveals a clear pattern. It is sticking to the Turkish "Gulenist" line, but is taking care to cite it as the Turkish view on events rather than fact.

Moscow is keeping its options open. Soon after the assassination, Putin went on Russian state TV to say that the assassination was "undoubtedly...aimed at disrupting the normalization" of bilateral ties between the two countries. More pertinently, he said it was also aimed at disrupting the "peace process in Syria." And more chillingly, he declared that "there is only one possible response to this -- the strengthening of the fight against terror, and the bandits will feel it themselves."

WATCH: Russian President Vladimir Putin said the killing of his ambassador in Turkey was a "provocation" aimed at spoiling Russia-Turkey relations, and derailing the Syria peace process. He spoke about the incident during a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the Kremlin. (Reuters)

Putin Calls Ambassador's Killing A 'Provocation'
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His import was clear. As Karlov's killing will allow Erdogan to further his primary domestic goal -- the crushing of all and any opposition to him -- it will allow Putin to further his primary foreign-policy goal in the Middle East: winning the war in Syria. Russia will now be able to pursue its war with even more confidence that Turkey will not try to stop it. There is suspicion that a deal may have been cut between Erdogan and Putin in August that would allow both Russia and Turkey to advance their own agendas in Syria. That deal will now almost definitely remain in place.

The Russian argument will be clear, and simple, and deadly. A terrorist sympathizer shot a Russian diplomat in revenge for the carnage of Aleppo. The terror threat from IS and other jihadist groups that Russia claims it is fighting in Syria has not diminished. The only response must be to strike at IS and its affiliates harder. Aleppo has fallen. The Russians will not stop. Idlib may well be next. Thus will Putin's Russia continue to project its "imperial power" in the world while at the same time ensuring that its puppet Assad remains in nominal control of the country, preserving Moscow's naval facility at Tartus in the process.

To Putin, it does not matter how much of Russia's narrative is true, and much of it is not. What matters is that Moscow's military campaign remains unchallenged, and its narrative is just one way that the Russian government has ensured that a strong opposition to Putin's methods has yet to materialize, at least not at the state level.

Was the killing of Andrei Karlov an assassination that draws the world one step closer to all-out war? No, it was merely a tragedy that Moscow and Ankara could exploit to further their own political and military ends. This is not a step toward a wider war -- except for the Syrians, many more of whom will now be killed in the name of "fighting IS." This is realpolitik, at its dirtiest and most cynical. It is realpolitik, in the style that has come to characterize the Middle East in the post-Arab Spring era -- just with a Russian twist.

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the views of RFE/RL
IS fighters search weapons boxes at a Russian base in what is said to be Palmyra, in this still image taken from video uploaded to social media on December 13.
IS fighters search weapons boxes at a Russian base in what is said to be Palmyra, in this still image taken from video uploaded to social media on December 13.

December 13, 2016, will live in infamy -- the day the resistance battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces essentially crumbled and yielded their stronghold of the city of Aleppo to government forces. Social media was ablaze with pro-Assad supporters talking of the city's "liberation," while those who vehemently oppose Assad's regime tweeted their despair and fear of the brutalities that might be meted out to the civilian population.

Such fears appear to well-grounded, considering this tweet from the official feed of the United Kingdom's mission to the United Nations:

But in the uproar over Aleppo, one incident seems to have been forgotten. Mere days before the city fell, another event of significance occurred in Syria's never-ending catalogue of military victories and defeats, attacks and retreats, seizures and counter-advances. On December 11, the extremist group Islamic State (IS) recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra from the pro-Assad coalition: It was an astounding reversal of fortune given the group's loss of large swathes of its self-proclaimed caliphate over the past six months.

When IS was driven from the city in May, largely thanks to the power of Russian air strikes and, reportedly, private military contractors, it was hailed as vindication for Moscow, which claimed to have joined the Syrian conflict to defeat IS -- despite focusing most of its military firepower against more moderate CIA-backed rebel groups, some of which were fiercely battling IS. Indeed, it appeared that Russia was more concerned with protecting its naval facility at Tartus and propping up Assad than any genuine desire to battle the most successful jihadist group in history.

Even before Russian President Vladimir Putin declared mission accomplished in Syria and announced a partial withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria in April 2016 (a withdrawal that never materialized), Washington had estimated that 80-90 percent of Russian air strikes targeted non-IS rebels.

But the capture of Palmyra, crowed commentators like the Independent's Robert Fisk, proved that this was not the case. Palmyra provided some with the ammunition to advance the narrative that it was in fact Russia, and not the United States, that was truly taking the fight to IS.

Now, barely six months later, Assad's Russian-backed forces have allowed Palmyra to slip from their hands. This is instructive. Russia's original seizure of the city was never about fighting IS. Rather, its goal was two-fold: to seize oil and gas fields in the area, and to score a symbolic victory of recapturing such a historic city from notorious extremists.

Russian conductor Valery Gergiyev leads a concert in the amphitheater of the ancient city of Palmyra on May 5.
Russian conductor Valery Gergiyev leads a concert in the amphitheater of the ancient city of Palmyra on May 5.

Moscow made full propagandistic use of its victory -- holding a concert among the city's ancient ruins, in front of journalists flown in from all over the world, to show the world that it had driven IS from the city. From start to finish it was a marvelously executed spectacle.

Even after the fall of Palmyra, however, Russia had a problem -- a perennial one: the incompetence of Assad. Despite all the assistance he was receiving from his coalition that has kept him in place -- a loose grouping that includes fighters from the Lebanese extremist group Hizballah, Shi'ite militias from Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commandos, and the Russian military and private mercenaries, the rebels began to drive regime forces out of the strategically vital city of Aleppo over the summer.

Russia was, accordingly, forced to turn its attentions to Aleppo -- a city with no IS presence whatsoever -- which it began to pound from the air in order to achieve its true goal -- keeping Assad in power. The result was inevitable -- in both cases. Aleppo fell and Palmyra, now devoid of Russian attention, was retaken by IS -- its first successful territorial conquest in two years.

This was a state of affairs not lost on Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, who tweeted:

What makes matters worse is that Aleppo's fall and Palmyra's recapture come just as Washington has agreed to send 200 more troops to Syria to fight IS.

IS's Treasure Trove

Their job will now be made all the harder -- and more dangerous. Thanks to Russia's abandonment of the city to focus on destroying rebel opposition to Assad in Aleppo, IS easily saw off Syrian forces who were so keen to flee they left behind a treasure trove of military hardware for IS in their wake. According to Syrian expert Hassan Hassan, the National Defense Force, a pro-Assad militia unit, "left most of the heavy weapons without a fight." Amaq, IS's news outlet, he continued, claims that 100 pro-regime fighters were killed in the battle and that, critically, IS seized 30 tanks, six BMP infantry fighting vehicles, six 122mm artillery pieces, other smaller artillery, and "untold antitank missiles, grad missiles, tank shells & ammunition."

A video of IS's spoils of war shows that the extremist group captured artillery pieces, heavy antiaircraft machine guns that pose a potent threat to both helicopters and targets on the ground, crates of Kalashnikov assault rifles, submachine guns, large quantities of artillery and mortar shells, and boxes of ammunition. Beyond this, IS will now be in possession of more supplies that are useful for running a military campaign in the desert. An investigation by The Interpreter shows that bank cards from Russian financial institutions and other items with Cyrillic script are present in the video. Whoever was there before IS showed up -- the Russian military, Russian private military contractors, or someone else -- left in a hurry and left behind a good amount of firepower and equipment.

These are weapons may now be turned against U.S. forces that are genuinely battling IS in Syria and Iraq. IS's seizure of the Jazal oil field, the Al-Mahr oil field, the Jahar gas field and the Hayan gasoline company in the areas surrounding Palmyra could also enable IS to replenish its coffers by selling oil and natural gas from the area once again.

Since there do not seem to be any new developments on the geopolitical front that would change Russia's calculus, it seems clear that Russian efforts to prop up Assad -- and destroy the shrinking nonjihadist opposition -- will continue unabated.

It's a salutary reminder that the fall of Aleppo is a catastrophe for the Syrian people but of little relevance to the fight against IS. In fact, as Palmyra shows, Russian actions have only strengthened the beleaguered Islamic State -- an accomplishment that may possibly be paid for in American lives.

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the views of RFE/RL

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About This Blog

"Under The Black Flag" provides news, opinion, and analysis about the impact of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in Syria, Iraq, and beyond. It focuses not only on the fight against terrorist groups in the Middle East, but also on the implications for the region and the world.

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