U.S. Marines in Turkey Assaulted by Nationalist Youth Group

Two U.S. Marines in Turkey were assaulted on Monday by more than a dozen members of the Turkish Youth Union (TYU), a secular nationalist youth group opposed to U.S. and European Union influence in the country. The attack on U.S. military personnel by citizens of an allied nation reflects Turkey’s continued decoupling from Western norms and values.

In a video of the incident posted on social media by the TYU, a group of men can be seen shoving two Americans in civilian clothes and covering one of their heads with a white sack while chanting, “Yankee, go home.” The video was captioned, “U.S. soldiers who carry the blood of our soldiers and thousands of Palestinians on their hands cannot defile our country.”

The Marines that were attacked are assigned to the USS Wasp, deployed to the region as part of the U.S. Sixth Fleet mission in support of Israel. The assault occurred while the Marines were on shore leave during a regularly scheduled port visit in Turkey’s city of Izmir after the conclusion of bilateral training exercises with Turkish Naval Forces. The U.S. Embassy in Turkey confirmed the incident, and American officials later said that Turkish police intervened immediately, detaining 15 of the offenders.

Commander Tim Gorman, a spokesperson for the U.S. Sixth Fleet, said that the Marines were taken to a hospital as a precaution but had not sustained any injuries. They subsequently returned to their ship.

This was not the TYU first attack on American military personnel. In 2014, 20 TYU members attacked three U.S. sailors in Istanbul and similarly put a bag over one of their heads. In 2016, authorities detained two members of the group after they tried to put a sack over the head of a U.S. soldier. The group responded on Twitter by writing, “You put a sack over our soldiers’ heads in 2003,” an apparent reference to the detention of 11 Turkish special forces soldiers by U.S. troops in Iraq. U.S. forces captured the Turkish soldiers in order to prevent them from assassinating the Kurdish Mayor of Kirkuk.

Erdogan has disparaged the United States on numerous occasions while declaring that he “firmly backs” the leaders of Hamas. At NATO’s July summit in Washington, DC, Erdogan accused President Joe Biden and the United States of being “complicit” in Israel’s ongoing “war crimes” against Palestinians in Gaza.

The attack on the U.S. Marines coincided with a Bloomberg report on September 2 that Ankara had officially requested to join BRICS, an intergovernmental organization seeking to challenge the political and economic power of the West. Members of BRICS include Brazil, Russia, China, Iran, and India. Erdogan also recently reiterated his desire to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an organization founded by China to counter Western hegemony and supported by Russia. These developments are clear signs that Erdogan is refocusing Turkey’s loyalties away from the Western alliance and investing in camps that seek to undermine it.

At the same time, Turkey is once again seeking to re-enter America’s F-35 fighter jet program. Washington had removed Turkey from the program in 2019 for purchasing the Russian-made S-400 missile defense system from Moscow. If Ankara acquires the fifth-generation stealth fighter, there is sufficient reason to fear that it would use the aircraft against U.S. partners and allies.

Sinan Ciddi is a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Sophia Epley is an intern. Sophia is also a student at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. For more analysis from Sinan and Sophia, please subscribe HERE. Follow Sinan on X @SinanCiddi. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.