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More than three years after Turkeys traumatic 2016 coup attemptwhich the government pinned on the Gulenist sect though Turkeys allies remain unconvinceda controversy over religious orders is flaring anew. After sweeping purges, Ankara claimed it had expunged the malignant Gulenists. Yet since then, investigative journalists have pointed to the rise of other sects in their place.

In a country consumed by conspiracy theories and behind-the-scenes intrigue, the revelations have set off quite a stir. Suspicions that sects have again crept into the state machinery have sparked raucous TV debates and several parliamentary questions. It has especially worried Turkeys secular press outlets, long obsessed with religious orders and the specter of Islamization.

In particular, Turkish journalists say a shadowy group called Menzil has been infiltrating the police forces. Two months ago, Turkeys interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, denied the allegations. Show me one [member of the Menzil sect inside the police forces] and I will resign from the ministry, he said daringly.

The involvement of Islamic sects in Turkish politics is anything but new. While Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of secular Turkey, outlawed religious orders in 1925, some began to make a comeback in the 1950s. The most significant one was the Naqshbandi-Khalidi, a conservative brotherhood that is subdivided into several branches. Today, the majority of Turkeys Islamic sects spring from it, as does the much-feared Menzil.

One of those branches, the Iskenderpasa, was behind the creation of the countrys first Islamist party, the National Order Party in 1970. Erdogan himself was a member of the Iskenderpasa, like many other figures of the current governing Justice and Development Party (AKP). In fact, since its ascent to power in 2002, the religiously conservative, free-market party has built its rule on the co-opting of religious communities, including the now infamous Gulenists, distributing favors to them. Their influence has grown alongside that of the AKP.

But none ever wielded the might of the Gulenists. Unlike the Naqshbandi-Khalidi, the Gulenist movement is not based on a Sufi order but on a school of thought called Nurwhich advocates a strand of Islam reconciled with technological progress and scientific enquiry. Naqshbandi-Khalidi sects, on the other hand, tend to be hostile to modernity and the West.

Led by the preacher Fethullah Gulen, the group gained ground in the 1970s through a string of private schools it created to train a pious elite. By the 1990s, it had started to export its schools abroad. Domestically, Gulens followers moved to capture state institutions, seeking to supplant long-established secular elites. By the early 2000s, they controlled the judiciary and much of the police.

When Erdogans AKP came to power in 2002, it joined forces with the Gulenists to crush the Turkish militarya self-professed bulwark against Islamism. Together, the Gulenists and the AKP carried out the so-called Ergenekon and Sledgehammer trials that landed hundreds of military officers in prison. But soon after the military was tamed, a vicious power struggle ensued.

In 2012, the Gulenists, buoyed by a feeling of omnipotence, assailed Erdogans entourage, attempting to jail some of his confidants. A year later, they brought up corruption allegations to sabotage the AKP leadership. To thwart the movement, Erdogan demoted thousands of suspected Gulenists in the police and judiciary. He then shut down Gulenist media outlets, including the daily Zaman and businesses such as the Koza Ipek conglomerate.

In July 2016, a coup attempt unfolded that claimed more than 250 lives. Erdogan was quick to point to Gulens long arm.In its wake, Ankara sacked some 150,000 public employees and arrested more than 34,000 people over alleged Gulenist ties. Though the defeat of the coup was vaunted as a democratic triumph, critics blame the purges for swallowing up an array of subversive figures, well beyond Gulenist circles.

The Gulenist movement, now referred to exclusively by its sobriquet FETOan acronym for Fethullahist Terrorist Organizationbecame a national scourge. We have drawn a lesson from [the Gulenist threat]and will not allow it to happen again! Erdogan proclaimed in a 2017 speech.

Yet for all the castigations and witch-hunting, there is concern that the president might not have learned from his mistakes. In Metastaz, or Metastasis, a book published last year, the investigative journalists Baris Terkoglu and Baris Pehlivan say the government has been filling the void left by the anti-Gulenist purges with substitute religious orders.

This process began as early as 2014, they claim. As suspected Gulenists were demoted within the police forces, new recruits were largely drawn from Naqshbandi-Khalidi and other non-Gulenist Nur sects. Citing a source who witnessed job interviews at the time, Terkoglu and Pehlivan say most candidates were granted positions after displaying loyalty to a certain group. At times, the candidates even provided the name of the specific sheikh they followed.One group dominated the recruits: the Menzil.

More recently, the independent outlet T24 revealed that this process was still ongoing. Again, citing a source from the police, T24 disclosed that scores of appointments and promotions inside the department were made through direct or indirect references to Menzil membership over the past six months. It confirmed that the sect has been snatching posts formerly held by the Gulenists.

Little more than a week later, the police filed a complaint against the author of the piece. Soon thereafter, a court decision ordered it be taken down from the website.

A Naqshbandi-Khalidi offshoot, the Menzil take their name from the eponymous village they hail from, nestled in the predominantly Kurdish southeast. Like the Gulenists and other religious communitiesknown as cemaat in Turkishthe Menzil are not a spiritual congregation concerned solely with divine matters. Rather, they are a self-interested organization. While they share the overarching intent of promoting Islam and conservative mores in Turkish society and abroad, their immediate goal is that of influence and power for the group itself.

The Menzils forays into Turkeys cultural, business, and political arenas serve as a testament to this enterprise. Since the 1980s, when then-President Turgut Ozal lifted restrictions on religious activities that benefited all sects, the group has grown steadily.

As the Soviet Union crumbled in the early 1990s, the Menzil were among a handful of Turkish sects that flocked to the newly independent republics of Central Asia to set up private schools. That is something the Gulenists have been well known for. In 2005, the Menzil founded their own business association, Tumsiad, which now boasts more than 15,000 members. Later, they launched a TV channel, Semerkand TV, and expanded a publishing house, Semerkand Yayinlari. In 2018, the government allowed them to establish a university, the Semerkand Science and Civilization University.

The network built by the Menzil bears an uncanny resemblance to the one the Gulenists once commanded. Until the authorities launched a crusade against it, the Gulenist movement ran a vast empire of media outlets, universities, and business and civic organizations.

As was once the case with the Gulenists, the AKPs alleged association with the Menzil is likely due to the partys lack of a sufficient number of elites from its own ranks to control the state. Following the Gulenist purges, sects like the Menzil provided the AKP with readily available and ostensibly loyal cohorts to replenish a gutted state apparatus. In that sense, Erdogan and his party are merely perpetuating their customary policy of resorting to religious orders to buttress their sway.

Although the scandal brought them to light, the Menzil have maintained a discreet presence in the bureaucracy for quite some time. In fact, their infiltration long predates the purges. As Fevzeddin Erol, one of the Menzils chiefs, recently told a reporter from the daily Sozcu, two former AKP ministers stemmed from the Menzil: Recep Akdag, the health minister between 2002 and 2013 (as well as a brief stint in 2016-2017), and Taner Yildiz, the energy minister between 2009 and 2015.

Yet the sheikh also confided that he had men everywhere in the state. And as their numbers grow, the Menzil could impose their agenda.

Over the past few months, the acronym METOa play on FETOhas widely circulated in Turkish media. Still, however catchy that is, it would be precipitous to treat the Menzil as the new Gulenists.

Rusen Cakir, a veteran journalist who wrote a book about Turkeys Islamic communities, has warned against such comparisons. On his upstart channel Medyascope, he stressed that the membership of any Naqshbandi-Khalidi group was a lot looser than that of the Gulenists, which hampered their organizational capacity.

Besides, if the Gulenist movement was united, then the T24 revelations suggested that the Menzil were undermined by internal rivalry. A feud inside the group arose after one of its wings, Semerkand, based out of the city of Adiyaman, got more positions in the police than another wing, Buhara, based out of the city of Eskisehir. That will doubtless hurt the sects prospective clout.

Even so, groups such as the Menzil pursue their own interests above alljust like the Gulenists did. While they may currently side with Erdogan and his clique, their loyalty is prone to shifts. And as the conflict between the AKP and Gulen demonstrated, the partys strategy of relying on religious sects is a perilous one. A sect-dominated state apparatus could pose risks that will long outlive Erdogan and his government.

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Erdogan's Purge of Gulenists Has Replaced One Islamic Sect With Another - Foreign Policy

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to teach Libyan militia leader Khalifa Haftar a lesson if he does not cease his attacks on forces loyal to the UN-backed government in Tripoli.

Erdogan said in a speech that the putschist Haftar ran away from negotiations being held in Moscow, and that Ankara would not hesitate to teach him a lesson if he continues military action against the Government of National Accord (GNA).

The Turkish leader claimed that Haftar had first agreed to sign the ceasefire before abruptly leaving Moscow. Despite the setback, Erdogan stated that he was still planning to take part in further talks on Libya.

Haftar, the leader of the Libyan National Army, left a summit held in Moscow without signing a ceasefire agreement with the head of the UN-backed GNA. The Libyan general reportedly returned to Benghazi earlier on Tuesday, claiming that the ceasefire excluded provisions crucial to the LNA.

Ankara has signaled its desire to assume a direct military role in the conflict, after agreeing to security cooperation with the Tripoli-based government. Erdogan said at the start of January that Turkish troops were slowly moving towards Libya to help ensure coordination and stability in the war-torn country.

Haftars willingness to participate in the Moscow talks was seen by major world figures as a breakthrough that could lead to lasting peace. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the summit was a necessary first step toward ensuring stability in Libya. Her sentiments were shared by Germanys Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who described the talks as a positive signal and a sign of progress.

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Turkey will not refrain from teaching putschist Haftar lesson if he keeps attacking Libyas government & people Erdogan - RT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Irans top diplomat acknowledged Wednesday that Iranians were lied to for days after the Islamic Republic accidentally shot down a Ukrainian jetliner. The admission came as new surveillance footage purported to show two surface-to-air missiles 20 seconds apart shred the airplane and kill all 176 people aboard.

The downing of the Ukraine International Airlines flight last week came amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. over its unraveling nuclear deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for the first time Wednesday threatened Europe by warning its soldiers in the Mideast could be in danger over the crisis as Britain, France and Germany launched a measure that could see United Nations sanctions re-imposed on Tehran.

The crash and subsequent days of Iranian denials that a missile had downed the airplane has sparked angry protests in a country already on edge as its economy struggles under crushing American sanctions.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran reached a fever pitch two weeks ago with the American drone strike in Baghdad that killed the powerful Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The general had led Iranian proxy forces abroad, including those blame for deadly roadside bomb attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq.

Iran retaliated with a ballistic missile strike targeting Iraqi military bases housing U.S. forces early last Wednesday, just before Irans paramilitary Revolutionary Guard shot down the Ukrainian airliner taking off from Tehrans Imam Khomeini International Airport.

Iran for days afterward insisted a technical fault downed the 3-year-old Boeing 737-800. It wasnt until Western governments, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, went public with their suspicions the plane had been shot down that Iran admitted it fired on the plane.

Not admitting the plane had been shot down was for the betterment of our countrys security, because if we had said this, our air defense system would have become crippled and our guys would have had doubted everything, said Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guards aerospace program, in television footage aired Wednesday.

Hajizadeh only days earlier apologized on state television and said: I wish I were dead.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, speaking at a summit in New Delhi, became the first official to describe Irans earlier claims as a lie.

In the last few nights, weve had people in the streets of Tehran demonstrating against the fact that they were lied to for a couple of days, Zarif said.

Zarif went onto praise Irans military for being brave enough to claim responsibility early on.

However, he said that he and Rouhani only learned that a missile had down the flight on Friday, raising new questions over how much power Irans civilian government has in its Shiite theocracy. The Guard knew immediately afterward its missile downed the airline.

The Guard is answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is expected to preside over Friday prayers in Iran for the first time in years over anger about the crash.

The new surveillance footage obtained by The Associated Press showing the missile fire was filmed off a monitor by a mobile phone. It appears to be taken near the town of Bidkaneh, northwest of Tehrans Imam Khomeini International Airport.

The two minutes of black-and-white footage purportedly shows one missile streaking across the sky and exploding near the plane. Ten seconds later, another missile is fired. Some 20 seconds after the first explosion, another strikes near the plane. A ball of flames then falls from the sky out of frame.

The footage corresponds with AP reporting, appears genuine and matches geographic features of the area. The date in the upper right-hand corner of the video appears to correspond to Irans Persian calendar. It also explains how so many people filmed the shoot down: The first explosion drew their attention and their filming mobile phones to the predawn sky.

Amid all of this, Britain, France and Germany on Tuesday launched the so-called dispute mechanism pertaining to Irans 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Iran has been breaking limits of the accord for months in response to President Donald Trumps decision to unilaterally withdraw America from the deal in May 2018.

After Soleimanis killing, Iran announced it would no longer abide by any of the nuclear deals limits, which had been designed to keep Tehran from having enough material to be able to build an atomic bomb if it chose. However, Iran has said it will continue to allow the United Nations nuclear watchdog access to its nuclear sites.

Speaking before his Cabinet, Rouhani showed a rarely seen level of anger in wide-ranging remarks Wednesday that included the threat to Europe.

Today, the American soldier is in danger, tomorrow the European soldier could be in danger, Rouhani said. We want you to leave this region but not with war. We want you to go wisely. It is to your own benefit.

Rouhani did not elaborate.

European forces have been deployed alongside Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. France also maintains a naval base in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, while Britain has opened a base in the island nation of Bahrain.

European Commission spokesman Peter Stano told reporters that officials were aware of the threats, but the European Union had no plans to leave Iraq. Italian Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini told lawmakers his government has plans to increase Romes troop levels at the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil passes.

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, meanwhile, made an unannounced visit Wednesday to the Azraq base in Jordan, where German troops serving in the fight against the Islamic State group are based. Germany wants to resume training Iraqi forces.

Rouhani also reiterated a longtime Iranian pledge that Tehran doesnt seek the bomb. That pledge comes amid Western fears that the time it would need to have enough material for a nuclear weapon is narrowing. Under the deal, experts estimated Iran needed a year.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, Iranian state media said the British ambassador to Iran, Robert Macaire, had left the country. Macaire departed after being given what the state-run IRNA news agency described as prior notice, without elaborating. Britains Foreign Office insisted Macaires trip to London was routine, business as usual and was planned before his arrest and brief detention in Tehran on Saturday. He was detained after attending a vigil about the plane shoot down that turned into an anti-government protest. Britain said he planned return to Iran.

___

Schmall reported from New Delhi. Associated Press writers Nadia Ahmed and Jill Lawless in London, Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv, Ukraine, Lorne Cook in Brussels, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Frances DEmilio in Rome contributed to this report.

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Video: 20 seconds of terror between missiles in Iran crash

Cars drive through a busy road in Tehran last July. Manufacturing including automobiles, metals and plastics accounts for about a fifth of overall employment in Iran. Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Cars drive through a busy road in Tehran last July. Manufacturing including automobiles, metals and plastics accounts for about a fifth of overall employment in Iran.

Since 2017, the Trump administration has placed layers of tough sanctions on Iran in an effort to deprive the regime of financial resources and to force it to negotiate a new nuclear deal.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a recent speech that the administration's strategy of "maximum pressure" aims to cut off 80% of Iran's oil revenues and that "President Rouhani himself said that we have denied the Iranian regime some $200 billion in lost foreign income and investment as a result of our activities."

Yet Iran's economy has not collapsed.

"I think the predictions of a quick economic collapse were too optimistic," says Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, an economics professor at Virginia Tech specializing in the Iranian economy. Despite the Trump administration's crushing sanctions, there is "a misunderstanding of the level of complexity of Iran's economy and how good they are or how experienced they are with resisting sanctions."

To be sure, the increasing sanctions since 2017 have hit Iran's economy hard.

"Unemployment is high; inflation is high. They're running out of foreign exchange," says Salehi-Isfahani. "The economy is not in good shape at all."

Certain goods, such as food products, are not affected by secondary sanctions on Iran. Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Certain goods, such as food products, are not affected by secondary sanctions on Iran.

But over the past four decades, Iran has had a lot of experience with sanctions and has learned to withstand their impact, he says. And it's no different this time.

Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund estimate Iran's gross domestic product is on track to decline by roughly 9% this year. (Iran's own estimates are lower, Salehi-Isfahani says). Compare that with the 1970s and late 1980s, when the U.S. imposed sanctions after Americans were held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. At that time, Iran's GDP per capita dropped by 50%, according to Salehi-Isfahani.

The World Bank and IMF estimates of economic decline take into account a sharp drop in Iran's oil exports. Before the U.S. pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal in May 2018, Iran was exporting about 2 million barrels of crude oil a day. Now it's estimated that Iran exports between 300,000 and 500,000 barrels daily, most of that to China, says Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, the founder of Bourse and Bazaar, an organization that tracks developments in Iran's economy.

But Iran isn't solely reliant on oil, Batmanghelidj notes.

"The Iranian economy is a very diverse economy, and manufacturing is really one of the most important areas," he says. "Currently, manufacturing accounts for about one-fifth of overall employment in the country."

Batmanghelidj says that includes automobiles, metals and plastics. The U.S. sanctions make it difficult for Iranian businesses to access goods needed to make the products, and it's tough to find customers abroad because there's fear the Trump administration will also slap secondary sanctions on any company doing business with Iran.

But some Iranian manufacturers can stay afloat because of informal payment systems that don't rely on banks to get money in and out of the country, Batmanghelidj says. Also, certain goods are not affected by secondary sanctions.

"They're really basic goods, like food products or like consumer products, including things like household products, like detergent or shampoo," he says.

Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist at the Brookings Institution, says Iran also has "well-integrated" relations with regional partners, through which it can barter, trade or use other types of arrangements to maintain some economic activity.

"The Iranians really do have alternative industries to fall back on and a significant domestic capacity, as well as the ability to leverage their relationships with several of their neighboring states to try to muddle through economic adversity," she says. "Countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, some of the Central Asian republics and, of course, Syria, elsewhere across the region it does have a reach that goes beyond that of the U.S. Treasury Department."

A shortage of imported goods has helped spur domestic production, Salehi-Isfahani says. That, in turn, has helped create more employment for Iranians.

But it's hard to gauge how much patience the Iranian population has. Forty years ago, he says, Iranians were willing to put up with hardships caused by U.S. sanctions. Now they are protesting in the streets.

"As we have noticed in the last few months," he says, "that tolerance isn't there. To what extent the government can maintain public order in the face of this 10 to 20% decline in living standards, I don't know."

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Why Iran's Economy Has Not Collapsed Amid U.S. Sanctions And 'Maximum Pressure' - NPR

BEIJING They accuse each other of inciting violence. They denounce one another as corrupt. They call each other terrorists.

As tensions between the United States and Iran persist after the American killing of a top Iranian general this month, the two countries are waging a heated battle in an unlikely forum: the Chinese internet.

The embassies of the United States and Iran in Beijing have published a series of barbed posts in recent days on Weibo, a popular Chinese social media site, attacking each other in Chinese and in plain view of the countrys hundreds of millions of internet users.

The United States Embassy has accused Iran of leaving bloodstains everywhere. The Iranian Embassy has denounced the Jan. 3 killing of the general, Qassim Suleimani, and vowed to seek the end of Americas evil forces in western Asia.

The battle has captivated people in China, where diplomatic rows rarely break into public view and the government often censors posts about politics.

The trolling comes at a time when the United States is pressuring American technology companies to censor content by groups the government has identified as terrorist organizations. Reports have emerged that Facebook, for example, is censoring some pro-Iran posts, including on Instagram. The company said in a statement that it was obliged to review some posts in order to comply with American sanctions.

Iran, for its part, has for years sought to hinder the flow of information from the West more broadly, blocking Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

Chinese news outlets have covered the skirmish breathlessly, describing Weibo as the new battlefield between the two countries. A hashtag referring to the Weibo fight had been viewed more than 1.5 million times as of Thursday.

The Chinese authorities operate one of the worlds most aggressive censorship systems, routinely scrubbing reports, comments and posts on the internet that are deemed politically sensitive or subversive. Posts by foreign diplomats are known to have been censored, especially on topics such as North Korea or human rights.

But the government has so far allowed the war of words between the United States and Iran to continue, perhaps because it deflects attention away from issues in China, analysts said.

Any topic that provides a distraction from internal problems in China is beneficial to Beijing, said Fergus Ryan, an analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute who has studied Chinas censorship of posts by foreign embassies. This just happens to be a case where Beijing sees little downside for itself as Iran and the U.S. squabble.

Many Chinese internet users have used the occasion to criticize the United States as an imperialist power, echoing a favorite propaganda theme of Beijing. Others have praised Weibo for allowing the discussion to be published, reacting to the news that Facebook had been censoring some posts.

The American Embassy, which has more than 2.6 million followers on Weibo, said it welcomed the debate.

We expect critical discussion and debate, which might include both support and criticism of U.S. policy, the embassy said in a statement, describing its approach to social media in China.

The Iranian Embassy, with more than 300,000 followers, did not respond to a request for comment.

China and Iran have sought closer relations in recent years, especially as American sanctions have increased economic pressure on Tehran.

Irans foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, visited Beijing in late December, just days before the killing of the general, to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi. At the meeting, Mr. Wang criticized overseas bullying practices, a remark that was seen as aimed at the United States.

In its Weibo posts, the Iranian Embassy made a point of appealing to Chinese internet users, thanking them for their support and even suggesting that they visit Iran for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday (safety is not an issue, the embassy wrote).

Iran might be particularly eager to gain attention and validation from the Chinese public, experts said.

China has provided Iran with very important economic and political lifelines in recent years when U.S. sanctions have choked that country, said Hongying Wang, an associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Positive responses from Chinese commenters could help boost the legitimacy of the Iranian government in the eyes of its own people, she added.

Albee Zhang contributed research.

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U.S. and Iran Are Trolling Each Other in China - The New York Times