Adımlar Magazine, a radical Islamist publication headquartered in Istanbul that has publicly supported ISIS, has lost a writer and three of its editors were injured this week in a blast at their headquarters. Responsibility for the attack is disputed in several publications, though the editor in chief of Adımlar insists the bombing was the work of “the CIA or the Mossad.”
Hurriyet reports that the blast struck the office of the magazine on March 25. The explosion occurred around 7:30 PM local time, killing writer Ünsal Zor and injuring three others. Daily Sabah adds that the perpetrators allegedly “booby-trapped the door of the monthly magazine’s offices in Istanbul’s Kağıthane district with a pressure-induced bomb, and a blast ripped through the third-floor office in the six-storey building.”
While Sabah claims that no group has claimed the attack and speculated that a group called the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) may be behind the attacks, Hurriyet reports that a group called the “People’s Defense Unit” claimed responsibility for the attack.
The DHKP-C would be a prime suspect for the attack because of its rivalry with the Islamic Great East Raiders Front (IBDA-C), a radical Islamist group with which Adımlar has affiliations. The IBDA-C is considered an illegal terrorist organization in Turkey. In addition to that group, Adımlar writers have publicly expressed solidarity with the Islamic State.
Little is known of the “People’s Defense Unit,” though the name closely echoes that of the People’s Defense Units (YPG), the Kurdish military organization that has gained prominence in the West for its ongoing war with the Islamic State (the group appears to be a separate entity, and there is no evidence that its organizers are Kurdish). According to Hurriyet, a Twitter account attributed to the group tweeted: “Adımlar Magazine was punished for their justification of the massacres. Our actions will continue to the extent that such discourses continue. It is a crime to defend killers. No action will be left unpunished against revolutionists.”
The magazine’s employees and leadership have already begun blaming Israel and the United States for the attack. Speaking to CNN anonymously, a staff member at Adımlar said, “We know this to be the work of CIA and Mossad. We know this is an intelligence operation.”
The magazine itself has taken this stance, with its editor in chief Ali Osman Zor, brother of the one killed in the bombing, posting to its Facebook page: “The Bomb was the CIA or Mossad’s work!”
The magazine posted photos from what it claims to be a rally to honor Ünsal Zor Friday on Facebook. “Martyrdom of joy!” the message reads, “Ünsal Zor, a valiant man devoted to his life to Allah and His Messenger.” At the rally, people can be seen making the one-finger Islamist salute most recently made famous by the Islamic State.