Turkish ultra-nationalist youth group hoods U.S. soldiers in Istanbul

Nov 02 2021

The Youth Union of Turkey (TGB), a secular nationalist youth organisation, announced on its social media account that its members hooded U.S. soldiers in Istanbul on Tuesday.

The flagship of the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet, the warship LCC 20 Board ‘USS Mount Whitney’ anchored in Sarayburnu Harbor, İstanbul on Monday evening. It is unclear how many U.S. soldiers were attacked by the group.

The TGB activists put a sack over the head of the U.S. soldiers who got off the ship and published the photo over its social media account.

The activists described their action as revenge for an incident dubbed as ‘Hood Incident’ in northern Iraq 2003 in which U.S. soldiers detained Turkish special forces members and led them away with hoods over their heads in the back of a truck. Around 100 American soldiers stormed the barracks used by the Turkish troops, arresting 11 soldiers and six civilians and taking them to the regional capital of Kirkuk.

Following the Iraqi war, Ankara feared the creation of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq which could encourage separatist aspirations among its own Kurdish population.

The activists chanted slogans “Yankee Go Home and Atatürk’s youth on duty” while they were attempting to hood the US soldiers.

“You are the murderer of millions of Muslims. You are providing tons of weapons to the PKK-YPG terrorists. But you were defeated in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey. You are our enemy and are not wanted here. We cannot allow American soldiers to walk in our lands freely,” they told the US soldiers.

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The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have been the key U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), taking heavy losses in the campaign. Ankara regards the YPG as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has fought for initially self-rule then autonomous rights for the Kurdish population in southeastern Turkey since 1984, and has sworn to attack them.

The nationalist activists said that their action was a response to the tension in the Eastern Mediterranean and the declaration of 10 ambassadors who urged Turkey to release jailed philanthropist Osman Kavala.

“Against the US’s chaos plans, America’s pawns FETO and PKK, their bases that seek to besiege Turkey and ten great powers, we once again HOODED the defeated US, the murderer of the oppressed nations,” the group tweeted.

In 2014, the TGB members put a sack over the heads of the soldiers on the ship USS ROSS (DDG71) which was returning from a NATO military drill in the Black Sea.

Published at ahvalnews.com

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