Türker Yilmaz* was not long into his police academy training when he realised how the system worked. The good jobs, the better pay, the promotion prospects all depended on your dedication to a shadowy Islamic network with its headquarters based in Pennsylvania.
"They kept tabs on every recruit, had a grading system from zero to five – five being the ones who prayed, fasted, never drank alcohol," the policeman said, referring to the movement founded by the Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who lives in exile in the US.
The power and the influence of the elderly cleric is the defining issue of Turkish politics. Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan, the prime minister, has declared war on Gülen – previously a key ally of his conservative, Islamic ruling party – following the eruption of a corruption scandal in December that implicates the government, the prime minister's closest associates and his family.
