The elephant in NATO’s room: state-sponsorship of Daesh
New
evidence has emerged that the Turkish government under President
Erdogan is covertly providing direct military, financial and logistical
support to ISIS, even while claiming to fight the terror network.
The
evidence comes in the form of testimony from an ISIS terrorist captured
by Kurdish fighters, widely recognised as the most effective force
confronting ISIS on the ground.
The testimony has been
reported by two Kurdish news agencies, the Syrian-Kurdish Harwar News
Agency (ANHA) based in Rojava, and the Turkish-Kurdish Ajansa Nûçeyan a
Firatê (Firat News Agency or ANF News). The latter’s head office is
based in Amsterdam.
Websites of both news agencies are blocked in Turkey.
Interviews
with the ISIS fighter, captured by the Kurdish People’s Protection
Units (YPG), reveal that Turkish military and security forces are
facilitating ISIS operations within Syria, as well as ISIS terrorist
attacks inside Turkey.
The new testimony corroborates
similar claims made by other former and active ISIS members, as well as
Western and Middle East intelligence sources.
Yet Turkey
is a leading member of the NATO alliance. And while the Western members
of NATO have gathered mounting intelligence confirming Turkey’s
sponsorship of ISIS, they have refused to act on this intelligence.
Turkish spies thwart Turkish cops
The
source, Savas Yildiz, was captured by the YPG during the ISIS attack on
the Kurdish province of Gire Spi (Tel Abyad) in Syria.
Blacked out in the Turkish and international press, Yildiz’s capture by the YPG is a significant counter-terrorist success.
A
Turkish national who joined a jihadist group in Syria in 2014, Yildiz
was the prime suspect in the twin bombings of the headquarters of one of
the main opposition parties in Turkey, the pro-Kurdish People’s
Democratic Party (HDP). The bombings occured at HDP offices in Adana and
Mersin in May 2015.
Yildiz went on to participate in a
string of further terror strikes in Turkey. But he was also originally a
prime suspect in the ISIS bombing in Istanbul in March 2016, which
killed four and injured 39 civilians.
Turkish authorities at first assumed that Yildiz was the suicide bomber in that attack, but police quickly identified the actual bomber as Mehmet Ozturk.
Both Ozturk and Yildiz were known to Turkish security forces as ISIS operatives. The authorities had put out a dragnet for Yildiz in October
2015, believing he, Ozturk, and two other ISIS operatives — Haci Ali
Durmaz and Yunus Durmaz — had re-entered Turkey from Syria to carry out
terror attacks.
After the March 2016 bombing in Istanbul, Turkish police again released the names of Yildiz and his accomplices, describing them as three suspected ISIS terrorists planning further strikes inside Turkey.
But
while Turkish police had been hunting Yildiz and his accomplices, they
had been repeatedly thwarted by Turkish intelligence agencies. Turkish
security sources said
that Savas Yildiz had twice been previously arrested by Turkish
authorities for his allegiance to ISIS, and was even on a terrorist
watch list.
Similarly, Yildiz’s colleague, Mehmet Ozturk, had been “blacklisted” by Turkish intelligence
as a “supporter of a terrorist group,” but had repeatedly been able to
travel to and from Syria because he was not on the national judiciary
informatics system (UYAP).
Yildiz had gone on to
participate in the ISIS attack on Gire Spi, but was forced to surrender
to YPG forces after he was left stranded under a collapsed building.
ISIS freedom of movement sanctioned by Turkish state
In
an interview with ANHA, the confessed terrorist said that leading
Turkish ISIS members move freely between Turkey and Syria because some
of them are working for Turkish intelligence.
Border
outposts would be routinely disbanded of Turkish security forces between
particular arranged hours to allow groups of 20–30 ISIS fighters to
pass through unhindered and undetected, Yildiz said:
“There is an agreement between Turkey and ISIS. Turkey supports ISIS because it poses a threat to Kurds and they can use it against them.”
He
confirmed that the Turkish military had open lines of communication
with ISIS as early as the terror group’s invasion of Mosul in Iraq in
June 2014:
“… when Mosul was first captured, around 50 people were held captive in the Turkish consulate. They opened all roads for us because our guys had the captives. They gave us all kinds of freedom of movement. Those captives were exchanged with Turkey releasing 100 of our friends.”
According to
Yildiz, Turkey’s primary goal in supporting ISIS is to use the group as a
geopolitical bulwark against the rising political and military power of
Kurdish groups:
“The Turkish state and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan supports us solely because they are against Kurds. It’s not because he’s affectionate towards us or anything. Because he has no relation to Islam. He wouldn’t support us for a day if we didn’t fight against the Kurds.”
The
ISIS operative also explained that Daesh’s strategic priority is to
overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria — other targets in Turkey,
the US and Iraq, for instance, are secondary priorities:
“The Turkish regime, the US, the Iraqi regime are not important for us, but the Syrian regime is. Because we see Syria as the center for the Islamic State that will be founded.”
Yildiz also
confirmed that ISIS has a massive presence across Turkey, “in Istanbul,
Konya, Ankara and all Kurdish cities. But Antep was chosen as the
central base for the effective use of the border and to have all routes
pass from a common point.”
Antep, he said, is the
crossing point into ISIS territory for foreign fighters from all over
the world, including Turkish nationals. Yet they do so with impunity,
right under the nose of Turkish security forces.
“People
rushing from all over the world pass from a narrow passage here,” said
Yildiz. “They cross from the peripheral districts and villages in Antep.
It’s impossible for the security forces to not see them, not notice
them.”
He identified several different passage points
“all around Antep and Kilis. One of these was the Rai side. We passed
via Rai and Çobanbey. And we used the Elbeyli side. One of the most
frequently used spots was Karkamış. It’s close to Jarablus. These were
passage ways always open for us.”
Savas Yildiz’s claims
are surprisingly detailed, suggesting they are indeed accurate. And they
cohere with a large body of mounting evidence.
Erdogan’s ‘deep complicity’
Ahmet
Yayla, former counter-terrorism and crime prevention chief for the
Turkish National Police between 2010 and 2014, had direct experience of
operations on the Turkish-Syria border.
“The Erdogan
government has consistently turned a blind eye to tens of thousands of
ISIS supporters using the Istanbul airport and porous Turkish border to
cross into Syria to join ISIS,” he said.
Apart
from witnessing the Turkey-Syria terror funnel firsthand, Yayla has
interviewed dozens of ISIS defectors hiding in Turkey, in his capacity
as deputy director of the International Center for the Study of Violence
Radicalisation.
The findings of this
research — conducted in collaboration with NATO and Pentagon
counter-terrorism consultant, Professor Anne Speckhard of Georgetown
University, a specialist in the psycho-social factors in
radicalisation — have been published in their book released in July, ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate, as well as in their recent paper in the peer-reviewed Perspectives on Terrorism journal.
They draw on these interviews to explain that direct Turkish sponsorship of ISIS is an open secret within the terror network:
“Despite Erdogan’s claims that he is fighting ISIS, evidence indicates that he has been, and continues to be, deeply complicit in allowing ISIS to transport, not just recruits via Turkey, but also weapons and supplies. These chilling facts have been confirmed over and again during our ISIS defector interviews. A former emir told us that ISIS had been able to construct thousands of propane tank bombs from supplies they brought in through Turkey.”
Yayla
and Speckhard argue that Erdogan “needs ISIS as a tool to quell the
PKK, the Kurdish rebel forces that are anti-Turkish rule, anti-Erdogan,
and anti-ISIS.”
A cache of documents
seized by Kurdish forces from ISIS fighters between December 2014 and
March 2015 provided documentary evidence that ISIS fighters moved freely
back and forth across the Turkish-Syrian border with assistance from
“private companies.”
Last year, a senior Western
official familiar with a large cache of intelligence obtained from a
major US-led raid on an ISIS safehouse said that “direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now ‘undeniable.’”
The
official confirmed that Turkey is also aiding other jihadist groups,
including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in
Syria.
“The distinctions they draw [with other opposition groups] are thin indeed,” said the official. “There is no doubt at all that they militarily cooperate with both.”
Several other ISIS defectors have confirmed
that ISIS field captains and commanders in Syria were in direct contact
with “Turkish officials”, as there was “full cooperation with the
Turks.”
Turkey’s ally Jordan, accuses Erdogan of sending ISIS to Europe
But perhaps the most damning assessment was made by one of Erdogan’s own allies, King Abdullah of Jordan, who told a meeting
of senior Congressional representatives in Washington DC in January
that Turkey was deliberately encouraging ISIS to dispatch terrorists
across the border into Europe, to carry out terrorist attacks.
“The fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy and Turkey keeps on getting a slap on the hand, but they are let off the hook”, the Jordanian king reportedly told the meeting.
The
Congressional debrief was attended by the chairmen and members of the
Senate Intelligence, Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees,
including Senators John McCain and Bob Corker, and Senators Mitch
McConnell and Harry Reid, the Senate Majority and Minority leaders
respectively.
Abdullah also confirmed that the Turkish
state was complicit in ISIS oil sales. President Erdogan, he said, was
committed to a “radical Islamic solution to the region” and to the
conflict in Syria.
The Jordanian king’s statements corroborate a previous investigation by INSURGE intelligence exposing a Turkish state role in facilitating ISIS oil sales.
The
king’s comments were supported by Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser
Judeh, also at the Congressional meeting, who said that after Russian
bombing had prevented Turkey from establishing safe zones in northern
Syria to stop refugees from coming to Turkey, “Turkey unleashed the
refugees onto Europe”.
King Abdullah’s comments were reported by the Middle East Eye (MEE), but barely acknowledged in the wider press except by a handful of outlets.
They
provide stunning evidence that the escalating terror threat from ISIS
to Europe has been deliberately increased by one of NATO’s most powerful
members.
Jordan’s military and intelligence agencies
work directly with Turkey, other Gulf states, and the West in
coordinating military training and assistance to anti-Assad rebels in
Syria. They are well-placed to detect problems with Turkish policies in
the region toward ISIS.
But so are other Western
intelligence agencies. The deafening silence of Western authorities in
the face of King Abdullah’s revelations raises urgent questions about
the ongoing refusal of NATO to take action to shut down the sponsorship
of ISIS by one of its own members.
NATO on holiday while one if its members sponsors ISIS
INSURGE intelligence contacted NATO for comment and was told by a spokesperson that the alliance would respond “soon.”
These were my questions:
“My question is, in the wake of this mounting evidence, what is NATO going to do about Turkey?
Given that combating ISIS is the highest priority, will NATO members be seeking access to Yildiz to interrogate him for intelligence on ISIS’ sponsors, financial networks and organisational structures — of which Yildiz appears to be intimately familiar?
And will NATO begin taking action to shut down the state-sponsorship of ISIS occurring in its own midst?”
At
3PM GMT, Daniel Arnaud, NATO’s head of media operations, finally
replied with an email explaining, essentially, that NATO is on holiday
while Turkey burns:
“Yesterday was a national holiday and many people are away today. We will answer your query in the next week.”
That’s how to fight the ‘war on Daesh.’
After MEE’s
report, Jordan’s government issued a statement officially denying that
the king had accused Turkey of exporting terror to Europe. However, MEE’s account was based on a credible source directly familiar with the discussion at the Congressional meeting.
Two
months after King Abdullah’s reported warnings behind closed doors in
Capitol Hill, multiple Turkish courts inexplicably released high-level
ISIS operatives who had previously been arrested and charged. Among them
was Abu Hanzala, the nom de guerre of Halis Bayancuk, and his associates.
Hanzala is believed to be ISIS’s senior commander in Turkey, and was caught with arms and ammunition when arrested.
He
was described by ISIS operative Savas Yildiz as a major clerical figure
in the Turkish operations of ISIS, responsible for promoting its
theological doctrines and recruiting hundreds of fighters.
Thanks
to the Istanbul High Criminal Court’s decision of 24 March, Turkey’s
very own ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’ is now free to plot further terror. Not
just him, but a total of 94 alleged ISIS operatives were released.
Meanwhile, NATO is taking a break for the long weekend, and may or may not decide to get back to me.
Under Erdogan, Daesh is metastasising
The
danger to Europe due to Turkey’s escalating support to ISIS was further
highlighted in the aftermath of the failed military coup against
Erdogan’s presidency. Erdogan has responded by launching his own
counter-coup against Turkey’s democratic institutions.
According
to a statement from the Kurdish National Congress (KNC), a coalition of
Kurdish organisations from across Europe made-up of exiled Kurdish
politicians, lawyers, and civil society leaders, Erdogan’s actions are
fueling a form of “sectarian nationalism” that “will create a Turkish
ISIS.”
The AKP, Erdogan’s ruling party, “now hopes to
strengthen its grasp on power and their anti-Kurdish, anti-democratic
system,” warned the KNC:
“Just as this coup attempt has emboldened the AKP, its allies and the nationalists, it has also radicalised the sectarian nationalist circles close to the AKP. This will lead to a new breed of Turkish ISIS-like formations, such as Osmanli Ocaklari, a paramilitary group organised by Erdogan himself.”
The
KNC also warns that Osmanli Ocaklari is both reaching out to ISIS while
developing connections across Europe: “They are already organising in
European countries; links between them and ISIS are already being
discussed. These sectarian nationalist trends will further radicalise
and become repressive forces against any opposition to the AKP.”
The
KNC warns that under the AKP’s ideological and political umbrella,
sectarian nationalism will become “Turkey’s version of ISIS… a more
radical version of the Muslim Brotherhood” used to project power across
the region.