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Anxiety Rising in Istanbul After Series of Extremist Attacks

by Associated Press

   ISTANBUL --

   For Ethem Salli, life in what he still calls one of the greatest cities
   on earth has been pared back to little more than his commutes to and
   from work.

   These days, with a string of extremist attacks targeting Istanbul still
   fresh in his memory, the 41-year-old environmental engineer doesn't
   venture outdoors much.

   "I am afraid just like everyone else around me. Because I don't feel
   the government is able to provide much security," Salli said Monday as
   he trudged through a snow-blanketed park near the Bosporus Strait. "Now
   everyone is mainly feeling that anything can happen to anyone anywhere.
   And so Turkey and Istanbul have become scary places."

   It's not just Turkey and Istanbul.

   From Berlin to Brussels, Florida to France, deadly attacks on public
   places are leaving citizens wondering whether they need to adjust their
   daily routines out of fear of a possible future attack.

   Back to normal?

   In France, Parisian cafe society is largely back to normal after the
   Nov. 13, 2015, attacks targeting the city's nightlife, but many schools
   still limit outings for children, fearing they will become targets.
   Belgium remains on its second highest alert level, with soldiers and
   extra police now a routine sight on the streets. Belgians remain
   cautious about going out, and a national poll conducted by the
   country's traffic security authority found that a third changed their
   behavior last year because of attacks in Brussels, including avoiding
   venues like cinemas and shopping malls.

   In Germany, where a truck attack on Berlin's Christmas market claimed
   12 lives, people are warming to the kind of pervasive camera
   surveillance already found in other European countries but previously
   frowned upon there due to the country's 20th century history of
   totalitarian dictatorships.

   A grim year

   In Istanbul, the deadly New Year's shooting spree by a gunman at a
   swanky nightclub on the banks of the Bosporus Strait struck at the
   city's wealthy elite and foreign visitors, but it also dealt yet
   another blow to the hopes and grand ambitions of this metropolis of
   more than 15 million that stands proudly at the crossroads of Europe
   and Asia.

   The deadly attack on the Reina nightclub, claimed by the Islamic State
   group, left 39 dead. They were far from the only victims of a grim year
   in the historic city. In some of the other attacks, 10 German tourists
   were killed in a suicide bombing in the city's historic heart on Jan.
   12, 2016, and dozens of people were killed at the city's main airport
   in June.
   The country's leaders have gone out of their way to urge frightened
   Turks not to succumb to fear.

   "Our citizens should not change their daily flow of life," Prime
   Minister Binali Yildirim said last week. "If they do so, they will
   serve the agenda of these terrorist organizations. Their aim is to slow
   life down, to stop it, to make people afraid."

   Shoppers are staying home

   People don't appear to be listening. On a recent day, it wasn't just
   heavy snow that was hurting trade at the cramped kiosk where the
   21-year-old Rumeysa Acar sells everything from tobacco to gum, to razor
   blades and even sunglasses. The attacks, she said, are keeping people
   at home.

   "We now think things like 'will a bomb go off here?'" she said. "Will
   something happen to us? Will we be able to make it home? We are afraid
   when we go out. It has hurt our psychology."

   In addition to the demoralizing wave of terror attacks, the country is
   still hosting some three million migrants fleeing war in neighboring
   Syria and Iraq and the nation remains under a state of emergency and
   crackdown launched by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after a failed
   coup in July. Turkey's once-strong economy is suffering, as the Lira
   currency plunged to an all-time-low against the U.S. dollar on Tuesday.

   People stand by the Bosporus Strait in Istanbul, Jan. 4, 2017. These
   days, with a string of terror attacks targeting Istanbul still fresh in
   his memory, some residents say they are changing their daily routines.

   Social groups are suffering
   Ferhat Kentel, a sociology professor at Istanbul's Sehir University,
   said that the multiple problems assailing Turkey are demoralizing the
   country.

   "Tragedies have been prevalent in this country from the past. The
   latest incidents indicate that we are in a new traumatic process,"
   Kentel told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "The attempted
   coup, what happened after the coup attempt, measures taken by the
   government and the state, the declaration of a state of emergency. All
   of this I think, combined with economic problems, wear down and corrode
   the souls of social groups as well as the individuals."
   Erdogan also has sought to reassure the country. In his first public
   statement after the New Year's attack he told his shocked nation: "No
   one's lifestyle is under systematic threat in Turkey."
   But that's not how it feels for some. For Salli, the recent snow storm
   was welcome as it left Macka Democracy Park all deserted but for a few
   students tossing snowballs at one another.

   "Of course. We try to be in less crowded places," he said. "Speaking
   for myself, my life has practically become going from work to home,
   from home to work, which isn't satisfying in a place like Istanbul.
   Because Istanbul is one of the greatest cities in the world."