Andrey Karlov, Russian ambassador to Turkey, assassinated
The scene was an opening in an art gallery.
The perpetrator, according to some initial reports (this is a breaking story), was a police officer with a message:
According to Sky News, the attacker shouted: “We made an oath to die in martyrdom…it is revenge for Syria and Aleppo.”
He is believed to have added: “Until they are safe, you will not taste safety.
“Get back, only death will take me from here.”
It is understood the man was speaking in Arabic…
According to local reports, the attacker was a Turkish policemen who had been assigned to the security detail overlooking the event which Mr Karlov had been attending.
The event was being covered by the press, so there are many photos and also video.
Turkey is a country that has been less stable in recent years, and Russia and Turkey have been on opposite sides of the current conflict in Syria. It’s a good bet that the killer was an Islamist radical, but we don’t know exactly what was going on. Putin has not spoken to the public on the subject yet:
According to agency TASS, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: “We qualify the events as a terrorist attack, we stay in contact with Turkish officials who have pledged that a through all-round investigation will be carried out.
“The attackers will be punished. Today this issue will be brought up at the UN Security Council.”…
Tensions between Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan have been mounting since a Russian attack aircraft was shot down by the Turkish air force in November last year.
The Kremlin hit back with a string of sanctions against Turkey, such as banning Turkish exports of fruit and veg.
Earlier this year the leaders of the two countries met in a bid to repair the relationship.
But the ambassador’s killing is set to anger Russia and spark deadly consequences.
[NOTE: If the killer was actually part of the security detail, this sort of thing is nothing new. In 2007, I wrote a post about the phenomenon.]
An art gallery? Didn’t I see this in a Bond movie?
Shades of 1914!
This man is clearly doomed. Let’s do our best to mitigate the damage by moving his family to the US. And give his kids scholarships to OSU. And cars; they must have cars if they’re going to realize the American dream.
Which involves butcher knives, because, BBQ,
Richard Saunders:
See this.
This piece over at Hot Air thinks Erdogan may blame the Kurds for the assasination:
Sounds plausible. There’s a terrorist group in Turkey called the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons that’s been very active recently — for instance, they bombed a soccer stadiium in Istanbul on December 10th. According to this article, the bombing “took 44 lives, 36 of them policemen, and wounded more than 155 triggered unprecedented outrage in the country. The bloodshed of innocent, defenseless people, among them a 19-year-old medical school freshman, touched the hearts of ordinary Turks. The swift crackdown on Kurdish and pro-Kurdish activists by the Turkish government following the Istanbul bombing has set off a nationalist, anti-Kurdish frenzy in Turkey.”
Erdogan may try to pin this on the Kurds.
But no matter what, I don’t see how a Turk with police credentials assassinating a Russian ambassador can in any way lead to Turkey somehow obligating anyone to come to their aid under article 5 of the UN Charter.
I realize that Muslims have been crying “Islamophobia” since their prophet attacked the pagans of Mecca and shrieked like stuck pigs (yes, the analogy is deliberate) when the pagans responded in kind. Muslims are always by definition of an unfair attack because when they try to steal something like Al Andalus it’s just unfair and “Islamophobic” for the Spaniards to try and keep it. Or take it back.
Seriously, it’s in one of the Al Qaeda fatwas in their list of butt-hurt why the west owes them.
So, seriously, if Russia retaliates against Turkey because one of their cops killed their ambassador that constitutes an “attack?”
Don’t think so. It’s time to stop playing along with this Muslim mental illness that anyone who doesn’t politely offer their throat to the knife is attacking Islam.
The 1914 comparison is mistaken. No rational actor is going to commit suicide in order to uphold a provision in an old treaty. Getting into a major nuclear war is suicide for both parties. That dynamic applies to Putin as well as the West.
Though the Iranians with their 12th Imam might* be the exception… only a fanatic contemplates suicide as a tactic. But then, fanaticism isn’t rational.
*reportedly, Khomieni loves his luxuries and such do not embrace suicide.
Geoffrey Britain:
I agree that a 1914 comparison is off the mark.
Meanwhile a jihadist uses an assault truck to murder 9 and injury 50 (the initial count) in Germany.
Weaponsman.com post on the murder of the Russian ambassador, Andrei Gennadyevich Karlov, by a young Turk (not the good kind), not a Kurd.
http://weaponsman.com/?p=37622
If we’re very lucky, Putin will have Erdogan killed for this.
One question: Why would a Turk be shouting in Arabic?
At least it wasn’t in a car dealer show room; to be murdered by an armed Islamic policeman surrounded by automobiles, that would have been unimaginable.
What will Putin do?
We’ll have to wait and see.