Atatürk was fighting against the Islamists long before America knew they were a problem.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, 1st President of Turkey, In office: October 29, 1923 – November 10, 1938
"...... founder of the Republic of Turkey as well as its first President."
" An admirer of the Enlightenment, Atatürk sought to transform the ruins of the Ottoman Empire into a modern, democratic, secular, nation-state."
"Mustafa Kemal saw the consequences of fascist and communist doctrines in the 1920s and 1930s and rejected both."
"Islamic courts were closed and Islamic canon law was replaced with a secular civil code modeled after the Swiss Civil Code"
"Kemal wanted to solve the litteracy problem. Literate citizens, who comprised as little as 10% of the population, used the Ottoman Language written in Arabic script with Arabic and Persian loan vocabulary.[29] Dewey notes that roughly three years with rather strenuous methods were necessary to learn to read and write in Arabic script on the elementary level[29]. The creation of the new Turkish alphabet as a variant of the Latin alphabet was undertaken by the Language Commission (Turkish: Dil Encümeni) at the initiative of Kemal.[29] The Turkish alphabet was decreed on 24 May 1928."
"The Decree on dress targeted the religious insignia used outside times of worship. Kemal passed a series of laws beginning from 1923, especially the Hat Law of 1925 which introduced the use of Western style hats instead of the fez, and the Law Relating to Prohibited Garments of 1934, which emphasized the need to wear modern suits instead of antiquated religion-based clothing such as the veil and turban."