The French Wolf Pack 

“We are going to kill the Armenians,” chanted crowds of Turkish nationalists as they marched through the outskirts of Lyon, France in October 2020.1 Waving Turkish flags and raising their hands to form a symbolic wolf head, the 250-strong mob advanced toward France’s memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide.2 They were on the “hunt” for Armenians, said a spokesperson for the Coordination Council of Armenian Organisations in France, who recalled the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century. These hunters left little doubt about their identity. The words “Gray Wolves” were sprayed in lurid yellow paint across the memorial. This signature was accompanied by a second slogan: RTE, the initials of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Moving to ban the Grey Wolves in the aftermath of these events, the French Interior Minister said the organisation “incites discrimination and hatred and is implicated in violent actions.” He noted that Grey Wolves members had participated in a “youth weapons camp” organised in the Ardèche region of France in 2019.3 Ankara responded angrily to the charge.4 Turkey’s foreign ministry condemned the decision as “disgraceful” and vowed to "respond in the firmest way possible." But who are these ultranationalists and how did they win the support of the Turkish state despite their behavior?

The Grey Wolves emerged as the paramilitary wing of the far-right National Action Party (MHP), founded in 1969 by Colonel Alparslan Türkeş.5 Prone to quoting Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Türkeş had been the Nazi Party’s primary Turkish contact during the Second World War.6 Under his tutelage, Grey Wolves members came to support the establishment of “Turan” – an ethnonational state stretching from modern-day Turkey to East China and uniting all Turkish ethnicities.7 The Grey Wolves’ ultranationalism was paired with virulent anti-communism. Their position was rooted in the fear that the growth of the Turkish left would see the nation align with the Soviet Union against the United States amidst the Cold War. Throughout the 1970s, the Grey Wolves thus sought to protect Turkey from the threat of communism. In this mission, the far-right organisation was assisted by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). 

Operation Gladio: Feeding The Wolves

When the Second World War ended, Turkey became geo-strategically vital to the US. Washington campaigned relentlessly for the nation to join NATO. When Turkey joined the alliance in April 1952, it guarded one-third of NATO's borders with Warsaw Pact countries and would soon amass the largest armed forces in Europe. 

Only months before Turkey’s membership was ratified, NATO had collaborated with the CIA to inaugurate the infamous Operation Gladio, a clandestine effort to create “stay behind” anti-communist armed resistance networks. As early as 1949, the Pentagon identified Turkey as “extremely favourable territory for the establishment of both guerrilla units and Secret Army Reserves.”8

During this period, Colonel Türkeş and the Grey Wolves were integrated into NATO’s apparatus. Despite his Nazi sympathies, Türkeş was among the founding members of Turkey’s Special Warfare Department. This was the local CIA-funded command centre for Operation Gladio, which in Turkey was codenamed Counter-Guerrilla. Such was their prominence in the deep state that the Grey Wolves could barely be distinguished from the Turkish intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT).

The Grey Wolves also established relations with the CIA-supported Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN).9 Founded by infamous Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Yaroslav Stetsko, the ABN was an umbrella organisation for reactionary anti-communist resistance.

The Terror of the Wolves

On 12 March 1971, amidst a wave of trade union militancy and popular demands for fair pay, the Turkish military seized state power for the second time during the post-war period. Their coup d’état inaugurated a decade of political violence which, Daniele Ganser argues, resembled an “outright civil war.”10 This was indisputably the case given that at least 22 people died every day as a result of political violence in Turkey in the late seventies. 

With protection assured by the Counter-Guerrilla programme, members of the Gray Wolves made up the rank and file of the “stay-behind” network which carried out the terror of the 1970s, assassinating leftists, journalists, and dissidents. The organisation created at least 28 military boot camps and recruited retired soldiers to train and teach militants. “We are the Counter-Guerrilla. Even the President of the republic cannot touch us,” one journalist was told by the Grey Wolves as he was tortured.

In October 1978, Alparslan Türkes described the then Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit as a “puppet of the communists” who must be “erased”; such “Moscow dogs” have “no right to live” in Turkey, said Türkes.11 Only months later, the Grey Wolves murdered more than 100 of Turkey’s Alevi community during a 10-day pogrom that became known as the Maras Massacre. As Landua notes, the Grey Wolves’ “uniformed marches and demonstrations and their violent clashes with leftist groups” drew “comparisons with fascist and Nazi youth groups.”12

During this period of state-sanctioned persecution, Abdullah Catli rose through the ranks of the Grey Wolves. Working for Counter-Guerrilla at the behest of the Special Warfare Department, Catli built a reputation as the Wolves’ enforcer and emerged as the organisation's second-in-command. Implicated in the murder of seven trade unionists, Catli was forced to flee Turkey for Latin America in 1978, where he traveled with Italian neo-Nazi Stefano Delle Chiaie. 

In May 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot in Vatican Square. The Pontiff was rushed to hospital for life-saving surgery. His assassin was apprehended: Grey Wolves member and friend of Catli, Ali Agca. Two years earlier, the pair had conspired to kill a prominent Turkish journalist. The official investigation into the assassination attempt found that the operation was ordered by the KGB. However, as investigative journalist Lucy Komisar writes, “This has never been proven, and a much more plausible case can be made that it was a rightist plot.” Daniele Ganser alleges that the CIA blamed the Soviets to divert attention from their own links to the would-be assassin. Indeed, in 1990, ex-CIA analyst Melvin Goodman admitted to the US Senate Intelligence Committee that “The CIA had no evidence linking the KGB to the plot”'.

Caged In Turkey, Free in Europe

Turkey’s third military coup of the post-war period came in September 1980. With the support of the CIA, General Evren took charge of the nation and promised an end to the violence that had plagued the 1970s. The Grey Wolves and the MHP were outlawed alongside an array of other parties while Colonel Türkeş was imprisoned. In their indictment against the MHP and Grey Wolves, the Turkish military government charged 220 members of the party and its affiliates with 694 murders.13

Violent events associated with the Grey Wolves in Turkey dropped significantly during the 1980s.14 Their priorities had changed. Members fled Turkey to construct an international network following the ban. As of 1983, the Wolves reportedly had 18,000 members across Europe, dedicated to spreading and defending the ideology of Pan-Turkism.15 In the four decades since the influence of the Grey Wolves across the continent has only grown. 

The Wolves At War

Amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Grey Wolves eyed an opportunity to expand Pan-Turkism – and their organisation – eastward. When the first Nagorno-Karabakh war broke out in 1988, many Grey Wolves volunteered to fight the Armenians. In 1992, Iskander Hamidov founded the Boz Qurd, which means “Grey Wolves” in Azerbaijani.16 Hamidov had served as Azerbaijan’s interior minister in the early nineties when he had played an important role in the Nagorno-Karabakh War. While not subordinate to their Turkish equivalent, Boz Qurd shared their ultranationalist sentiments and commitment to anti-communism.17

Like the Grey Wolves – who fought alongside the Chechen separatists and reportedly organised armed shipments to Chechnya with the implicit endorsement of the Turkish state – the organisation’s leadership supported Chechen independence, training troops for President Dudaev in 1995.18 That year, exiled Grey Wolves leader Abdullah Catli resurfaced in Azerbaijan, where he and fellow extremists tried, unsuccessfully, to topple the government.19 Consequently, this formation of the Grey wolves was relatively short-lived as President Aliyev’s government quickly outlawed the Boz Qurd and arrested Hamidov. However, the Grey Wolves left an ideological legacy in Azerbaijan and an Azerbaijani general was recently spotted making their salute during a military parade in Baku.20 Following the second six-week Nagorno-Karabakh war (2020), Turkey’s President Erdoğan committed to opening a new Grey Wolves school in territory occupied by Azerbaijan.21 The idea for the school, which Erdoğan opened alongside Azerbaijan's President, was instigated by the MHP and legitimized the Grey Wolves' presence in an area where they have been responsible for the extrajudicial killing of Armenians.

Following Russia’s invasion in February 2022, reports circulated in the Russian media that a detachment of up to 3,000 Grey Wolves had crossed the Ukrainian-Polish to join the Ukrainian war effort.22

Wolves in Germany, Austria and Bosnia

Germany holds the largest foreign Turkish electorate in the world and is home to some 3.5 million Turkish immigrants. The country offers the Grey Wolves fertile ground to recruit. In service to the anti-communist cause, there was a deliberate attempt to create a “favourable psychological climate” for the Grey Wolves in the late 1970s in parts of the Federal Republic.23 These efforts proved successful and current estimates suggest there are as many as 11,000 Gray Wolves in Germany.24 This makes them one of the nation’s largest right-wing extremist organisations. 

The vast majority of German Gray Wolves are members of one of three civil society organisations. The Federation of Turkish Democratic Idealist Associations in Germany (ADÜTDF) was founded in 1978 and has 170 local chapters. When the Grey Wolves were banned in Turkey following the 1980 coup, the organisational infrastructure and resources of the ADÜTDF allowed the group to continue operating around Europe.25 The Union of Turkish Islamic Cultural Associations in Europe (ATIB) and the European–Turkish Union (ATB) also boast significant numbers of members. 

Beneath this official facade, Germany’s Grey Wolves have strong links to violent crime. Osmanen Germania BC, a Turkish nationalist biker gang, was banned by the German state in 2018 after members faced charges of attempted murder, extortion, drug trafficking, deprivation of liberty and forced prostitution.26

The impunity with which the Grey Wolves have been permitted to operate in Germany may be explained by their ties to the CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union). In the late 1970s the then-CSU Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss met often with Grey Wolves founder Alparslan Türkes.27 CDU politician Hans-Eckhardt Kannapin helped to ensure Türkes’ German envoy received a resident permit to begin his work establishing the German Grey Wolves.28 After significant public criticism of these links, CDU/CSU Conference voted in 2016 on whether to make Grey Wolves membership incompatible with Party membership. The vote fell. As recently as 2020, reports emerged that CDU Duisburg politician Sevket Avci was a Grey Wolves member. When a party member reported Avci, he was told to keep quiet and apologise to Avci about his allegations “so close to an election”.29

The Grey Wolves thus retain close relations at a local level with Germany’s CDU/CSU. While providing the Christian Democrats with support among Germany’s sizeable Turkish community, the Grey Wolves receive organisational legitimacy. This public image is aided by support from German celebrities. Former Arsenal, Real Madrid and German National Team footballer Mesut Özil boasts a Grey Wolves tattoo.30 At Özil’s wedding, his best man was none other than Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. 

In recent years, Grey Wolves’ violence has spread across the border to Austria. A rally organised by a Kurdish women’s organisation in Vienna to highlight the rising rate of femicide was targeted by a mob of Grey Wolves in June 2020.31 This followed a pattern of similar incidents in previous months. 

Attempts have also been made to build a Grey Wolves cell in Bosnia. Speaking to Balkan Insight, Huseyin Cakalli, who has led these efforts, gave an insight into his progress.32 While not officially registered with Sarajevo’s authorities, the Bosnian Branch of the Grey Wolves, which Cakalli leads, has a Facebook page with more than 5,000 followers.

Wolves in Syria

The Grey Wolves presence in the Syrian Civil War is “an unprecedented cross-border venture”.33 The Wolves claim to be protecting the Turkmen, ethnically Turkish Syrians who generally live along the Turkish border. To do this, the Grey Wolves began to establish Turkmen brigades in 2013, posing for photographs and making the Grey Wolves’ salute.34 These units reflect the Grey Wolves’ ultranationalism, taking their names from former Ottoman rulers such as Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror.35

The Turkmen brigades have largely been organized within the Second Coastal Division, established in Ankara with the assistance of the Turkish state and pro-government newspapers like Yeni Şafak and Star.36 The division counts Alparslan Celik among its commanders.37 A member of the MHP and the Grey Wolves, Celik rose to prominence in 2015 when militia members under his command killed a Russian pilot after Turkish missiles shot down his airplane. Explaining his motivation for taking up arms, Celik said “The lands that are the relics of our ancestors are today under Russian bombardment. Almost all our villages there have been seized by the Russians.”38

Celik’s father, Ramadan, is a former MHP district mayor who has talked of his pride in his son’s decision to fight in Syria. Ramadan’s sentiments are commonplace within his party.39 Indeed, senior figures within the MHP  – including the heads of two district branches in Istanbul – traveled to fight in Syria. 

Nipping At The Heels of Power 

While outlawed in Turkey, the Grey Wolves ran free in Europe, building support for their eventual return. Since their establishment in the late sixties, the MHP had never achieved significant electoral success. This changed with the 1999 General Election when they won 18% of the vote much to the surprise of the MHP’s leader Devlet Bahçeli. A former Grey Wolves member, Bahçeli ascended to the Party leadership – where he remains today – after the death of Alparslan Türkeş in a car crash two years earlier. 

The reaction to Türkeş’ death conveys the influence the Grey Wolves continued to exert over Turkish politics despite their prolonged period of exile. Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan said that the Grey Wolves founders’ “loyal services always deserved the highest praise”. Former Police Chief Kemal Yazicioglu described Türkeş as 'My Chief Wolf!’, stating “I have learned everything from you.” 

After the 1999 election, the MHP entered government as part of the ruling coalition. Grey Wolves' violence dipped again during this period. However, when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the 2002 General election and initiated the so-called ‘Kurdish Opening’ – a state-sponsored attempt to co-opt the Kurdish movement through the partial expansion of democratic rights to the Kurdish population – the Grey Wolves began to target the Kurdish community.40 In Parliament, the MHP made opposition to the AKP’s agenda their primary issue, presenting themselves as the only Party to refuse concessions to the Kurds.41

The Kurds

Turkey’s Kurdish community  – who make up around 20% of the nation’s population – has long been a target of the Grey Wolves’ violence. In the 1930s, Turkey's Minister of Justice proclaimed that “those who are not of pure Turkish stock can only have one right in this country, the right to be servants and slaves.”42 His ultra-nationalist sentiments are reflected in the Grey Wolves’ persecution of the Kurds and those who do not identify as ‘pure Turk’. The organisation does not operate alone, however. Their war against the Kurds comes at the behest of the Turkish state. Mehmet Eymur, an ex-head of the counterterrorism department of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation, said the Grey Wolves were used as a tool against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).43 “These activities cannot be carried out with ordinary people,” Eymur said, adding, “We [the Turkish state] need men who can break things.” This relationship has allowed the Grey Wolves to escape justice for the murder of at least 6,000 Kurds over the last six decades.44 

Senior Gray Wolves member Abdullah Catli, who fled Turkey in 1978, was covertly recruited by Turkish Intelligence services after the 1980 coup to advance the state’s war against the Kurds.45 In return, the government turned a blind eye to Catli’s drug trafficking. He was not alone. When Kurds rather than communists became the central target of Counter-Guerilla, renamed the Special Forces Command in 1992, Grey Wolves members became pivotal to anti-Kurdish operations.

In 2021, Grey Wolves attacked a Kurdish family in the city of Konya.46 Chanting "We are grey wolves, we won't let you live here," a mob attacked with knives and rocks. Of the six individuals remanded in custody for the attack, at least four were released without charge. “Now I know much better that there is no justice for the Kurds,” said one of the victims. 

Pact With Erdoğan

Having refused to participate in the ‘Kurdish Opening’, when Erdoğan initiated peace talks with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) the MHP escalated their attacks on the then Prime Minister. At one protest in 2013, furious Grey Wolves reportedly chanted “Tell us to strike and we will strike! Tell us to die and we will die.”47 Addressing the crowd, Bahçeli replied, “Don’t worry, the time will come for that too.”

Following the collapse of the PKK-Turkey ceasefire in 2015, Erdoğan’s AKP lost their majority in that year’s March general election. Rather than negotiate a coalition agreement, the AKP called a snap election for November. In the meantime, the AKP turned against the Kurds, towards Turkey’s ultranationalists. The establishment of relations with the MHP helped Erogan regain the AKP’s parliamentary majority in November 2015.48

Two years later, both the MHP and the Gray Wolves supported Erdoğan’s efforts to alter the Turkish constitution to empower the office of the President. The success of the Grey Wolves international work was conveyed in the 2017 referendum results. The Turkish diaspora supported the constitutional changes by a considerably greater margin than the domestic electorate.49 The centrality of Grey Wolves’ support for Erdoğan’s dominance was conveyed in 2018 when the President was pictured making their infamous salute. 

As Britain's TUC noted in their report on the Turkish far-right, “With the AKP increasingly reliant on the MHP to get anything done, the latter has been able to exert greater influence over government policy.”50 This was highlighted in March 2021 when Erdoğan allowed Turkey’s chief public prosecutor, at Bahçeli's insistence, to submit an application to ban the second-largest opposition party, the left-wing, pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP).51

Furthermore, as the release of Alaattin Çakıcı illustrates, the alliance provides the Grey Wolves with government protection. Çakıcı was a senior Grey Wolves member who was arrested after the Turkish military coup of 1980 for the murder of 41 leftists. Upon his release, Çakıcı was recruited by the Turkish intelligence service as a hitman, targeting leftists and pro-Kurdish groups.52 In 2004, he was eventually convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to 19 years in Sincan Closed Prison. Çakıcı continued to threaten journalists from prison who investigated his crimes, stating “They will be punished by the people who love me in Turkey or abroad.”53 From behind bars, Çakıcı also reminded Erdoğan to whom he owed his electoral dominance.54“You are not the master of the state,” said Çakıcı. “Don’t forget, you are only a traveler, and the idealists [Grey Wolves] as well as the Turkish nationalists and all patriots, no matter which ethnic group they belong to, operate the shelter.” Çakıcı’s crimes did not prevent Bahçeli from calling for his release in 2018, describing him as a ‘brother who loves his nation and his country’.55 Bahçeli's wish was granted in 2020 and Çakıcı was freed. 

As Turkish journalist Can Dündar said in 2021, "Erdoğan carries the drum, but Bahçeli pounds out the beat.”56 The Grey Wolves more consequently are embedded, and insulated by, the Turkish government, their influence bolstered by a growing network of international cells that boast thousands of members.