The Istanbul attacks Tuesday now require U.S. law-enforcement agencies to "commit to battle tactics because that's the enemy that we face," former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik told Newsmax.
"We now live in a world where we have to worry about these radical Islamic groups that want to attack and kill Americans," Kerik, who directed the city's forces on 9/11, said in an interview. "To do so with whatever weapons they have.
"It's one thing for our military to be in Iraq or Syria and confronting people with small arms, heavy arms, explosive devices. That's one thing.
"The reality is that we are now fighting the same people in our own country — and that's what we just saw in Turkey. They're operating in the same manner.
"We're fighting an enemy that is an unconventional military-type enemy," he said. "We have to be prepared with that with our local, state and federal police."
At the site of three suicide bombings at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport, senior Turkish officials say there are at least 31 people killed and as many as 60 others injured.
Police fired shots to try to stop the attackers just before they reached a security checkpoint at the arrivals hall of the airport's international terminal but they blew themselves up, officials said.
But these attacks create another dilemma for the United States, Kerik said, because of Turkey's role in the fight to destroy the Islamic State.
"Turkey is supposed to be in a position where they're in this coalition fighting ISIS against us. However, they're also battling the Kurds — and we are the Kurds' allies.
"You can't tell what park they're in," he added. "Whose friends they really are. Whose allies they really are.
"That's my problem with this.
"I know that ISIS fighters have been found in Turkey," Kerik told Newsmax. "You have to question the allegiance and the ally in Turkey."
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