Who Paid the Turkish Terrorists on the Mavi Marmara?

The Jerusalem Post ran an interview today with one of the Israeli soldiers that attempted to search the blockade runner Mavi Marmara as it attempted to breach the join Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza strip.

The soldier in question was the senior-most noncom on the mission, and the last soldier to fast-rope down to the ship from the helicopter hovering overhead. By the time he hit the deck, two more senior officers had already been shot by Turkish "peace activists" wearing heavy ceramic body armor, and a third officer was severely injured after having his skull crushed with the heavy rods some of the terrorists were using as weapons.

The soldier has the other commandos form a defensive perimeter around their wounded comrades, and when the terrorists pressed their attack, they opened fire to keep from being overrun. The soldier in question killed six of the nine Turkish terrorists killed in the attempted blockade running with his handgun at point-blank range.

When the ship was finally captured and brought into port, the attackers were found to have large sums of money upon them; apparent payment for the pre-planned assault. According to the captain of the Mavi Marmara, the Turks were armed as well, and fired shots at the Israelis. He apparently watched the terrorists throw their weapons over the side of the ship, and forensic teams located shell casings that did not match Israeli weapons.

Turkish terrorists/mercenaries (chose the terminology you like best, as both would seem to apply) were paid substantial amounts of money by someone to stage an international incident, attacking soldiers simply attempting to enforce a blockade of an enemy port where ships loaded with hundreds of tons Iranian weapons had previously attempted to dock.

The question I have is whether or not turkey's increasingly Islamic government had a hand in staging this incident, and if they did, whether they are the kind of "ally" the United States or NATO really needs.