Turkish nationalist group puts sack on US soldier’s head, avenging Turkish troops

A Turkish nationalist youth group has managed to put a sack over an American serviceman’s head in the city of Istanbul yesterday, in revenge for American troops putting sacks over the heads of Turkish soldiers in Iraq many years ago.

The Youth Union of Turkey (TGB), a nationalist and Kemalist organisation headquartered in Ankara, posted a picture showing a man with a sack over his head surrounded by a crowd. In the caption, it railed against “the chaotic plans of the USA, America’s subcontractors FETO and PKK … their bases that want to besiege Turkey.”

Calling it “defeated” and “the murderer of oppressed nations,” it also said, in another statement, that “as long as the TGB exists, America’s trumpet will not sound in Turkey! Bloody US soldiers cannot roam in Turkey!”

The group’s move was claimed as an act of revenge for an incident which took place in Iraq in 2003, known as ‘the hood event.’ Following the US-led invasion of Iraq that year, American troops arrested a group of Turkish special forces soldiers who were operating in the north of the country.

They were led away with hoods over their heads and detained for around 60 hours, before their release was secured by the demands and protests by Turkey’s leadership, including then-prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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Despite the US’s expression of regret—including a letter to Erdogan sent by then-US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld—the incident is said to have severely impeded relations between Ankara and Washington. It was also taken as a huge insult by much of the Turkish public, as the hoods over the heads were seen as a symbol of dishonour and humiliation.

Since then, there have been a number of attempts by Turkish nationalists to take revenge by putting sacks over the heads of US servicemen. One of those attempts took place in 2014, as TGB members hooded some of the crew of the US warship, ‘USS Ross’, as it returned from a NATO exercise in the Black Sea.

Another attempt was in 2016 when a Turkish youth was recorded trying to put a sack over the head of a uniformed American soldier. Yesterday’s incident took place in the Sarayburnu area of Istanbul, and the TGB members reportedly laid in wait for the soldier to come off his ship—the ‘USS Mount Whitney’—which is docked at Sarayburnu port.

Following the incident, it was reported that 17 of the TGB’s members were detained by Istanbul’s police.

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