PKK STRUCTURE AND LINKS

AND

OTHER KURDISH SEPARATIST GROUPS

STRATFOR 070614

Robert Fragnito

PKK S T R U C T U R E

NEW System:

  • April 2002: 8th Party Congress, the PKK changed its name to the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress (KADEK) and proclaimed a commitment to nonviolent activities in support of Kurdish rights. APKK /KADEK spokesman stated that its armed wing, The People's Defense Force, would not disband or surrender its weapons for reasons of self-defense.
  • PKK/KADEK established a new ruling council in April, its membership virtually identical to the PKK's Presidential Council.
  • Personnel: In 1997 the PKK consisted of approximately 10,000 to 15,000 guerrillas and had thousands of sympathizers in Turkey and Europe. The Kurdish separatist movement began disintegrating, with many of its militant members fled into northern Iraq after Ocalan's 1999 capture. In 2002 the organization had declined to roughly 4,000 to 5,000 guerrillas.
  • In late 2003, the group sought to engineer another political face-lift, renaming the group Kongra-Gel (KGK) and brandishing its "peaceful" intentions, while continuing to commit attacks and refuse disarmament.
  • Although Kongra-Gel includes some former militants, the group in recent years has developed a political platform that renounces terrorism.
  • Kongra-Gel, called off the cease-fire at the start of June 2004, saying Turkish security forces have refused to respect the truce. Turkish security forces were increasingly involved in clashes with Kurdish separatist fighters.
  • Ankara claimed that about 2,000 Kurdish fighters had crossed into Turkey from hideouts in mountainous northern Iraq in early June 2004.
  • Presently, it is estimated that there are a total of 5,000 PKK/KONGRA-GEL terrorists, the majority of whom are in northern Iraq whereby the organization's headquarters are situated.

OLD SYSTEM:

  • The PKK has a Central Committee, presided over by a Central Executive Committee.
  • Abdullah Ocalan. Chairman of Chairmanship Council structure, precides over six more members. Those elected to the council other than him were Cemil Bayik, Duran Kalkan, Murat Karayilan, Halil Atac, Haydar Kaytan and the PKK's former European flank representative Mustafa Karasu.(PKK5th Congress).
  • Military cadres have more dominance on the organization's policies but that activities will be more centralized in the future. (PKK 5th Congress)
  • The organization is divided further into internal and external centers.
  • Peoples Liberation Army (Arteshen Rizgariya Gelli Kurdistan-ARGK) established after the Third Congress of the PKK held in Damascus-Syria in October 1986.
  • Externalcenter: operates through the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (Eniya Rizgariya Netewa Kurdistan-ERNK). The ERNK started to operate after 1989 when the European countries opened their doors and allowed it to flourish in their territories.
  • Duties of the ERNK in four main categories:
  • Mass activities (Press meetings, raids, occupations, etc.),
  • Activities targeting Turkey:
  • Determining on cadres and sending them to become fighters, Carrying out combat training, Sending fighting forces to Turkey, Providing logistic support, Organizing links between those in Europe and in Syria. Maintaining contacts with other armed groups. Maintaining contacts with groups in prisons.
  • Working on intelligence and party security activities,
  • Creating financial resources for the movement (narcotics trafficking, extortion, etc.).
  • PKK, its militants are "fighting under the flag of the ERNK and armed with the weapons of the ARGK".
  • Management Committee: aims to develop the works in the ideological, political and practical areas

Financial sources

please see document:PKK FUNDING: OPERATIONS AND METHODS

  • Revenues obtained from the "special nights" organized by branch organizations in Europe.
  • Aid campaigns periodically organized by the party.
  • Grants and subscriptions.
  • Sales of the publications.
  • Revenues obtained from the commercial establishments belonging to the organization.
  • Money collected through robbery
  • Money collected through drug trafficking and arms-smuggling.
  • Extortion
  • "Aids" received through intimidation from constructors and merchants running business in the region.
  • Smuggling of illegal workers.
  • Transfer of money to the organization from the persons who are entitled to payments in European countries, under refugee status.

PPK Affiliations

  • PKK has established pseudo wings or front organizations in order to bolster their propaganda and operational capabilities.
  • Various front organizations, disguised as socio-cultural associations (Kurdistan Committees) and so-called "information centers" are manipulated and guided by the PKK's facade branch-ERNK.
  • These institutions in fact provide the political, moral and substantial financial support indispensable for PKK's survival.
  • Within this framework and using its front institutions, the terrorist organization is trying to establish its diaspora in Europe, by organizing and inciting asylum seekers.
  • Funds in turn are used to finance the procurement of weapons and ammunition.
  • CONNECTIONS: PKK acts as a sub-contractor of the international terror network.
  • Maintains relationships with some Middle Eastern, African, European, and Latin American terrorist groups.
  • It collaborates with terror organizations such as the DEV-SOL and HIZBULLAH .
  • Trained with other terrorist organizations in Bekaa Valley/Lebanon under Syrian control and in Greece.

Kurdistan Freedom Hawks Rivals to PKK

  • Aliases: Kurdish Vengeance Brigade, Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, Kurdistan Freedom Falcons Organization
  • Base of Operation:Iraq;Turkey
  • Though the group fits into the context of a wider Kurdish nationalist movement, its precise goals are not completely clear. It claims to oppose Turkey's "false policies on the Kurdish issue," and to be seeking revenge for the deaths of Kurds at the hands of the Turkish government.
  • GOALS:
  • The group may, however, be focused on more limited goals, or be concerned solely with revenge for Turkish military and police operations against Kurdish communities and other Kurdish militants.
  • Though not the largest, most visible, or most active Kurdish militant outfit in Turkey, the TAK is still a dangerous terrorist group.
  • Origins: Conflicting Theories
  • Small splinter of or an alias for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the most active Kurdish militant group.
  • May be totally independent of the PKK, or only loosely connected to it. PKK leaders deny having any control over the TAK.
  • There are some indications that the TAK was founded by disgruntled or former members of the PKK.
  • The group uses terrorism to discourage tourism in Turkey by attacking targets such as hotels and ATMs. The TAK claims to have no desire to kill foreigners only that it wishes to cut off a key source of revenue for the Turkish government.
  • Differences between the PKK and the TAK:
  • PKK mainly attack military and political targets—the TAK has deliberately attacked Turkish and foreign civilians.
  • Geographical spread of TAK attacks also suggests that its members live in Kurdish migrant communities in western Turkey and in Istanbul, rather than in the Kurdish heartlands of the southeast that were the focus of PKK actions.

Human Links from PKK to TAK according to Europe Media monitor

  • Murat Karayilan- a commander of the ARGK and a member of Presidential Council of the PKK.
  • Sirri Sakik- was rearrested on 27 June 1996 following a statement he had made on 23 June on leaving the party congress of HADEP during which one participant had taken down the Turkish flag and substituted a portrait of the leader of the PKK; that he reportedly declared to journalists from private TV channels waiting outside that "we wish our culture to be respected. We do not wish to be disrespectful of other languages, cultures or flags of other people. We should be respectful of the Turkish flag"; that on 23August 1996, the Prosecutor General accused Mr.Sakik of separatist propaganda.

KEY NAMES OF OFFICALS DEALING WITH PKK BUT NOT LINKED TO PKK

  • Yasar Büyükanit- TURKISH GENERAL
  • Abdulkadir Aksu-Interior Minister of Turkey
  • Osman Baydemir-Osman Baydemir (born 1971) is a Turkish politician, lawyer and human rights activist of Kurdish origin. He is the current mayor of his home town of Diyarbakır and member of the Democratic Society Party (DTP).
  • Joseph Ralston- In September 2006, he was assigned as Special Envoy for Countering the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) by President Bush.[1] The PKK is a Kurdish separatist group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Turkey and the European Union.
  • Kemal Önal- Governor of Ankara
  • Edip Baser-Turkey's special coordinator for combating the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), said government spokesman Cemil Çiçek on September 11 during a news conference.
  • Mehmet Yilmaz- Soccer Player
  • Melih Gokcek- mayor of Ankara
  • Mahmut Coban- victim of Kurdish terrorism
  • Thierry Fragnoli- in France on Thursday April 5th after being produced in Paris at a special counter - terrorism tribunal. A special four member panel consisting of examining magistrates Jean - Luis Bruguire , Thierry Fragnoli, Marc Trevidic and Philippe Coirre filed preliminary charges and ordered that they be held in detention for a period of 120 days pending further investigations.

KURDISH HIZBALLAH IN TURKEY

  • A group not necessarily part and parcel with Lebanese Hizballah.
  • Current leader Isa Altsoy according to resources from 2005.
  • Hizballah is alive in Turkey, despite a 2000 crackdown in which security forces arrested 3,366 of its members and killed its leader and founder Huseyin Velioglu.
  • Intelligence shows that this group might have established links with al-Qaeda.
  • Background: A Kurdish Hizballah in Turkey
  • Hizballah emerged in Turkey's predominantly Sunni Kurdish southeast in the 1980s. Unlike Alevi Kurds and Turks, whose faith encompasses a liberal version of Islam, and Sunni Turks, who belong to the relaxed Hanefi school, Sunni Kurds adhere to the strict Shafi'i school and are among Turkey's most conservative constituencies. Thus, after its emergence, Hizballah found a receptive audience in southeastern Turkey, becoming a Kurdish group.
  • Organizational structure and Iranian support.
  • Like other Kurdish terror groups in Turkey, such as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Kurdish Hizballah (KH) under its leader Velioglu developed a strictly hierarchical structure.
  • Iran played a crucial role at this stage: Velioglu was inspired by the Iranian revolution, received funding from Tehran, and members of the organization went to Iran in the 1980s for training.
  • Clash with the PKK
  • The two groups' opposing worldviews inevitably led to a bloody fight. After the PKK attempted to force KH to join its ranks in the early 1990s, the latter took up arms. KH's initial success against the PKK in places such as Batman, Gercus, Mardin, Van, and Silvan increased its popularity among Kurds.
  • The organization shied away from targeting government institutions or security forces, while the Turkish security forces did not see the KH as their priority.
  • Decline
  • Turkish police dealt a serious blow to KH in a massive roundup that began in the Mardin province on March 14, 1999, with the capture of the organization's computer files including personnel records.
  • January 2000, the police killed Velioglu and arrested KH's military-wing leader Cemal Aydin and Istanbul representative Edip Gumus.
  • KH's decline followed soon after, with the police arresting 3,366 of its members in 2002, 1,596 more in 2001, and another 710 in 2002. Moreover, on September 5, 2001, security forces killed Velioglu's successor, Sulhattin Uruk, and Uruk's successor Mehmet Besir Varol was arrested in operations on May 17, 2003.
  • KH seems to be regrouping in Turkey and in Europe.
  • The organization's sympathizer cadre -- a shocking 20,000 people, according to the computer files seized by the police -- remains active.
  • Under the new leadership of the organization has moved away from violence to establishing grassroots support. KH, which has not published before, is now using the media for public outreach.
  • 2004 the organization printed six books (8,000 copies of each).
  • Three magazines: Gonulden Gonule Damlalar, Inzar (published in Fatih, Istanbul, and with an increasing circulation of 7,000), and Mujde (published in Basel, Switzerland).
  • Two bookstores (Davet Kitapevi in Elazig and Risale Kitapevi in Batman in eastern Turkey).
  • Nongovernmental organization: Insan Haklari ve Mustazaflarla Dayanisma Dernegi (Association for Human Rights and Solidarity with the Oppressed) in Diyarbakir.
  • Some military-wing and high-ranking members of the group who avoided arrest have fled to Europe. Others have gone to Syria, and also northern Iraq, where according to intelligence sources there may be as many as 100 unorganized KH members.
  • Approximately 950 KH militants were released from prison after July 29, 2003, when Turkey passed an amnesty law for the benefit of PKK members (of whom only 720 took advantage of this law). Most freed KH militants have returned to the organization either in Turkey or in Europe.
  • Finances
  • Since 2002, the organization has increased its activities among Kurds in Europe, particularly in Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and Austria, establishing associations, mosques, sports clubs, and small businesses, such as mosques in Cologne and Hamburg.
  • According to one intelligence source, in 2004 KH started getting money from al-Qaeda affiliate groups through London.
  • According to one intelligence analyst, in Syria the organization helps al-Qaeda militants from around the world cross into Iraq.

PKK FUNDING: OPERATIONS AND METHODS

STRATFOR
Robert Fragnito

Key Objectives and Sources of Revenue:

  • PKK Budget Estimated at $86 Billion.
  • PKK’s objective is to create international pressure and antipathy against Turkey.
  • PKK uses heroin production and trafficking to support its acts of terror (1996 INCS).
  • Engaged in drug trafficking and money laundering activities and is well-established in the production of almost all kinds of opium products and their smuggling.Other sources of revenue of the PKK as extortion, robbery and counterfeiting.
  • The revenuesused for purchasing firearms, munitions and other equipment used by the terrorists.
  • Narcotics smuggling therefore constitutes a major part of the PKK's financial apparatus, alongside extortion, blackmailing, robbery, arms smuggling and illicit labor trafficking.
  • The revenues gained from illicit drug dealings and marketing are channeled to funding its arms purchases, which is required to sustain its terrorist activities.

Individuals:

  • Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, as headof the Russian External Intelligence Service (SVR), has long been a PKK supporter, and once persuaded Saddam Hussein to allow the PKK to use Iraqi territory.] (American Foreign Policy Council 1996)
  • Danielle Mitterand, the radical widow of the former French president, from addressing Ocalan as "Dear President Ocalan" in a 1998 letter, which ended "[R]est assured, Abdullah, that I am committed to be beside you in the bid for peace. Sincerely yours, Danielle Mitterand."

Nations:

  • As Ocalan's [founder of PKK] attempts to find political asylum in 1998 and early 1999 proved, he also enjoyed the support of leftist parties in Italy, France, and Greece. The most insidious, if not necessarily surprising, support came from Germany's and Italy's Marxist terrorists, which supported and occasionally even joined in PKK combat operations.
  • The PKK long received covert support from the KGB for guerrilla and
    terrorist attacks against Turkey.
  • The group receives safe haven and aid from Syria, Iraq and Iran
    and has turned to urban terrorism in the past few years, according to
    the State Department.
  • Greece:
  • U.S. intelligence has uncovered evidence linking the Greek government tocovert training for an international terrorist group that until recently operated on a Greek island, according to CIA sources. (Washington Times September 10, 1996).
  • State Department terrorism report, issued in April (1996), said Greece
    denied Turkish charges that the PKK conducted training in Greece denied Turksh charges that the PKK conducted training in Greece and received aid from the Athens government.
  • Still not clear if Greece is supporting the PKK at present.

Media/Public Relations:

  • MED-TV: a satellite television channel that operated first under a British license from London and later from Brussels.
  • Although it ostensibly existed to promote Kurdish culture, the channel was such a blatant propaganda outlet for the PKK (at a cost of some $200 million per year) that it was eventually expelled from Britain and later lost its operating license in Belgium as well.
  • Public relations proved so adept at generating money that European assessments generally placed its annual income at between $200 and $500 million in the mid-1990s.
  • Income came from two major sources in Europe:
  • West European Kurdish militants among the emigre population, especially in Germany.
  • In 1997 Germany's Federal Ministry of the Interior estimated the number of PKK sympathizers in the country at 11,000, and claimed that the PKK possessed an ability to mobilize "tens of thousands" among the 500,000 resident Kurds. The German government further stated that the PKK collected millions of marks at its annual fundraising events, including 20 million marks in 1996-97.
  • The more important source of funds has been criminal activity, especially in Germany, Switzerland, France, Scandinavia, and the Benelux countries.

Drug Trafficking:

  • The PKK is actively involved in all phases of narcotics trafficking, from the producing and processing of the drugs to their smuggling and marketing.
  • It is stated that the PKK is engaged in producing, refining and marketing of drugs and has contacts in numerous countries.
  • PKK's involvement in narcotics trafficking through Turkey, reiterates that the PKK not only uses "taxes" extracted from narcotics traffickers and refiners to finance its operations, but "may be more directly involved in transporting and marketing narcotics in Europe" as well (INCS 1998).
  • The PKK's "turnover" from drug trafficking is estimated at "millions of US dollars".
  • Narcotics trafficking has entered Parisian suburbs thanks to the PKK, is responsible for 10 to 80 percent of the heroin smuggled to Paris.
  • Routes:
  • Interpol, British NCIS and the national police agencies of the EU member states, notes that the narcotics route that runs through Turkey to the Balkans and western Europe benefits the "separatist" organizations of Turkish/Kurdish origin and the PKK militants and their intermediaries.
  • The "Balkan route" and emphasizes that the terrorist organization has started using Romania and Moldavia, positioned along this route, as its rearward bases.
  • ERNK business group in Romania, called the Association of Eastern Businessmen, is an excellent cover for the illicit activities of the PKK which has tight control over the drug deals as the local PKK leader also heads the ERNK.
  • Drugs are sent to Europe by sea from the Libyan El Abde Mina Harbour, controlled by Syria, and another drug smuggling route goes through Turkey. The PKK organization gains $300-400 million yearly from drug smuggling.
  • Germany’s chief prosecutor asserted that 80 percent of narcotics seized in Europe have been linked to the PKK or “other Turkish groups,” which then have used the profits from illegal narcotics to purchase arms.
  • Narcotics smuggling activities of several Kurdish clans based in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain and thought to have ties with the PKK.

Organized Crimes: