PKK attack in Mersin tangles as details unveil

The outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) organized a bombed attack on a police station in the Southern Province of Mersin on September 26, prompting further questions as the investigation unveils.

The terrorist attack was prevented by 48-year-old police officer Sedat Gezer, who was shot and murdered during the clashes as two militants attempted to enter the police station aiming to detonate bombs fitted on them, according to the security camera footage and Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu’s statements.

Again according to ministry sources, the bodies of the suicide bombers, who detonated the bombs on them outside of the building after getting shot by the police in the clashes before they were able to enter the premise, were dismembered. The police only get hold of a “head and four legs,” at the crime scene.

Despite the dire conditions to identify attackers, within a few hours, police sources announced that one of the attackers was called Dilşah Ercan and that she was a member of PKK.

The information that attracted the pro-government newspapers and televisions (including the public broadcaster TRT) was that Ercan’s name was listed in the 2012 report of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) on imprisoned journalists as a reporter for the newspaper Azadiya Welat. The CHP was the headline in many newspapers and broadcasts, rather than the attack.

According to the news, this was “proof that the CHP has been in cooperation with the PKK”.

A prior intelligence of CHP

The CHP responded to the news and comments targeting the main opposition over a ten-year old report on imprisoned journalists, asking why Ercan was released by the government if she was a convict of terrorism. The party demanded fingerprint reports from the related authorities.

However, the CHP had gotten hold of other information that they could not confirm at that time. Their sources informed them that “an identity card of Dilşah Ercan was found on one of the bodies, but she was not the attacker”.

The course of events take another turn after the PKK claimed responsibility for the Mersin attack over a social media post. Before that, some commentators were arguing that the attack was commissioned by the official authorities but disguised as the PKK. Their arguments were debunked with the announcement. At least it seems to be.

The PKK also claimed that Dilşah Ercan was not involved in the action (there were militants called Dilara Ürper and Emel Feremez Hisen); Ercan was “currently on her duty”. With that statement PKK also stated that Dilşah Ercan was indeed a PKK militant with a code name “Zozan Tolan,” and she probably has been using her journalistic identity to cover her role in the organization.

CHP’s Özgür Özel then filed a criminal complaint against the Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu and called for the disclosure of the fingerprint reports again.

Soylu’s evidence: The taxi driver’s testimony?

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu then published a harsh comment on his Twitter account in the evening.

“Erdogan, who has been carrying out dirty propaganda for two days, and his aide, photo-novel Süleyman (Soylu, the Minister). Despite the DNA report of the murdered terrorist, you lied for two days and your media made the headlines. However, I’ve known for two days what you’ve been up to. You lied on purpose,” he posted.

Soylu responded to CHP immediately with a five-point answer. The first item of Soylu’s response that accuses Kılıçdaroğlu of “being a mouthpiece of PKK” was that the “taxi driver carrying the terrorists to the police station diagnosed the culprits”.

“You won’t like it, but the preliminary results of the examinations on fingerprints revealed a partial match,” he added.

There are other details as well. For example, the PKK boasted that its militants, whom it had sent to die and be killed, had carried out this bloody act “bypassing the intelligence network”. T24 writer Tolga Şardan questioned the security weakness, recalling Soylu’s statements that the Amanos region has been cleared of terrorists recently and that even “the shoe sizes of the terrorists are known” to the intelligence.

Minister of National Defense Hulusi Akar said that the attack was planned in Syria and the order was given from there.

Mersin, HDP, PKK

There are two more details that the experienced security journalist Şardan draws attention to. The first is that the murder that ended the Kurdish peace process in 2015 was the murder of two policemen in their sleep in Şanlıurfa. Another detail was that the PKK carried out a terrorist act in Mersin for the first time in nearly 30 years. Mersin was a city where the Kurdish-issue-focused People’s Democracy Party (HDP) was strong; two of the 11 deputies were of HDP.

This was an attack that targeted HDP voters in the city. As a matter of fact, HDP, which had announced the Labor and Freedom Alliance declaration with its allies on September 24, two days before the attack, condemned the attack without any delay.

The PKK carried out the Mersin suicide attack just after the HDP emphasized democratic and parliamentary politics.

Suicide attacks show that the organizations did not see the opportunity to leave the area after the attack and that they aim to create a feeling of terror and fear. ISIS and Al Qaeda’s actions are the most concrete examples of this.

Erdogan, Kılıçdaroğlu, war on perception

Another interesting thing is that the AKP government’s target after the Mersin protest was the CHP rather than the HDP.

Mersin Metropolitan Mayor Vahap Seçer is from CHP. Kılıçdaroğlu had started his rallies towards the 2023 election from Mersin to show the importance he gave to the city.

The day after the attack, a police operation started against Mersin Metropolitan Municipality of which Vahap Seçer from CHP is the Mayor.

The operation had nothing to do with the attack, it was more about financial allegations. But both the timing and the claims (especially from nationalist MHP members) that “HDP members are being replaced by MHP members in the mayoralties” enabled Internal Affairs to manage this perception.

According to the information given to him by the Interior Ministry, President Tayyip Erdoğan in a live TV interview on Sep. 28, reiterated the claim that the CHP report included a terrorist in its report covered claim that he took place as a journalist in the CHP.

Kılıçdaroğlu, on the other hand, first dealt with the issue in the axis of his defense in the 2013 report, but then he focused on the scientific identification of the attackers, probably in the light of the information he received.

There were points where both leaders miscalculated with unconfirmed information given to them.

Where Dilşah Ercan is on duty?

One pointing out: unfortunately, journalism is a profession that attracts not only states and intelligence agencies, but also illegal organizations. We also have to be careful.

Another question: Where Dilşah Ercan, whom the PKK declared to be its own militant, is an “officer”? Whose “officer” is she?
As we said, it tangles as it unravels.