Salih Mirzabeyoğlu

Salih Mirzabeyoğlu (real name Salih İzzet Erdiş; 10 May 1950, in Erzincan – 16 May 2018, in Yalova) was a Kurdish-Turkish Islamic fundamentalist with Bitlis Province   origin. His family were close to both the Naqshbandi and Nurcu Islamic brotherhoods, and were involved with the Kurdish Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925 against the newly founded Turkish Republic. Most of his supporters were Kurds.

In 1975, he and his friends published a political magazine called Gölge (Shadow). Mirzabeyoğlu was influenced by the Islamist poet Necip Fazıl Kısakürek who published a magazine called Büyük Doğu.

He is the ideologue and alleged leader of the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front (İBDA-C), a militant Islamist group present in Turkey. He was arrested on 29 December 1998 for allegedly trying to overthrow the constitutional order by force. Subsequently, following the İBDA-C concept of 'leaderless resistance', further attacks on banks, synagogues, churches, places serving alcohol and TV stations were claimed by groups who said they were part of İBDA-C. The bombings in Istanbul claimed 65 lives including that of the British consul general Roger Short. Mirzabeyoğlu was sentenced to life imprisonment.

On 23 July 2014, he was released from prison, and on 29 November 2014 consulted with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.