The Huffington Post quotes Rafik Hariri Center Resident Senior Fellow Aaron Stein on the recent attack by ISIS in Istanbul:
But authorities could not prevent Tuesday’s bombing, which, like the NYE plot, seemed to deliberately aim to kill tourists.
“This one is different, in that it’s not attacking Kurdish-related targets like the previous four [bombings] but is going after foreign nationals or tourism-related targets in Istanbul,” Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The WorldPost. “It points to a change in the ISIS strategy of how it treats Turkey and plans to attack Turkey.”
[…]
Critics of Erdogan contended that he and his ruling AK Party were ignoring IS threats because the group was also fighting with the PKK, Turkey’s enemy, as well as posing a threat to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Turkey’s other enemy.
“A large minority of the Turkish public believes there is silent AKP support for the Islamic State,” Stein said.