An investigation on the structure and action forms of ethnic and religious terrorist organizations and the processes of combating against them: The samples of PKK and DAESH

Although the use of the concepts of terror and terrorism dates back much further, in the contemporary world, towards the end of the Cold War, these concepts began to be redefined in a new phase. In addition, in the new world order, terrorist organizations have begun to turn into a tool and terrorism into a method for the states that are abstained of hot war to achieve their political goals by wearing each other down. In this thesis, it is aimed to examine the content of these concepts in depth and enable this important threat to be recognized more closely. In this context, it is planned to eliminate the definition confusion over the concepts and to explain the subject in a multifaceted manner from a comparative perspective. The subject has a specific framework for Turkey's fight against terrorism, and terror, terrorist organizations and terrorist acts are exemplified in this context. Therefore, PKK was chosen as an example of ethnic-motivated terrorist organizations, and DAESH was chosen as an example of religious-motivated terrorist organizations. A qualitative research was conducted in accordance with the document analysis approach and was based on academic monographs, articles, declarations, press archives, works of journalists and open public sources on the subject. In the first chapter, in addition to conceptual discussion of terror and terrorism, the history of terrorism and its types are included. In the second chapter, terrorisms with ethnic and religious motives are discussed separately. Ethnic-motivated terrorism has been tried to be explained with different examples from around the world throughout the historical process. Religious-motivated terrorism, on the other hand, is explained through radicalized terrorist groups that emerge from different religions and beliefs, in order to reveal that there are terrorist groups that are not specific to one religion but also emerge from different beliefs. In the third, fourth and fifth chapters of the thesis, the emergence processes, organizational structures, goals, actions of and combat processes against PKK and DAESH terrorist organizations, which were selected as the subject of investigation, were evaluated. Thus, the structures, ideological resources and action styles of terrorist organizations have been analyzed comparatively with their differences and similarities, and a resource that can be benefited from in Turkey's fight against terrorism has been made.