Situation, Facts and Events
12.09.2022
Daesh activities in Turkey
Daesh (also known as ISIS, banned in Russia) has quietly built its second base in Turkey, targeting Europe and Central Asia.
As part of an effort to reorganize after heavy losses in the US-led global campaign against Daesh, the group established a back-up branch in Turkey in 2017 called the Al-Faruq office, which is still active today.
The office was created primarily to manage the Daesh network in Eastern Europe, Russia and the Caucasus. The main office, which managed operations in Syria and Iraq under the Al-Sham office in Syria, remained the key control center of the jihadist organization’s provincial headquarters for managing the Daesh global network.
At the same time, the Daesh leadership believed that it could take advantage of the favorable environment provided by the Erdogan government in Turkey, which it had used in the past to transport fighters, raise funds and supply logistics.
To some extent, the Daesh leaders were right, since in most cases the Turkish authorities turned a blind eye to Daesh operations. The criminal justice system functioned like a revolving door for Daesh suspects, as most were quickly released after brief detentions and numerous acquittals.
White House Middle East Coordinator and a former U.S. envoy to the global anti-ISIS coalition Brett McGurk explicitly accused Turkey of denying “any serious collaboration with Daesh, even as 40,000 foreign fighters have passed through its territory into Syria.”. Tal Abyad, a Syrian border town, was a major supply route for ISIS in 2014-2015, with weapons and fighters freely flowing fr om Turkey to Raqqa and Iraq. Turkey has refused repeated and detailed requests to close its side of the border with US help and assistance.”
McGurk pointed out that Turkey also refused to allow the US military to fly out of the Incirlik Air Base to strike Daesh positions, even when Daesh fighters were infiltrating Syria from Turkey.
Data from investigations into terrorist attacks by Daesh supporters (or those episodes for which Daesh claimed responsibility) show that many of them spent time in Turkey, wh ere they were connected to the Daesh network under the supervision of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT).
For instance, Hayat Boumeddiene, a French citizen of Algerian origin who was a female accomplice of the Islamists behind the deadly attacks in Paris in January 2015, arrived in Turkey on January 2, 2015 and stayed in Istanbul for two days before traveling to the province of Sanlıurfa at the border. There she spent four days before heading to Turkey and crossing the border into Syria. Turkish intelligence tracked her movements and listened in on her conversations, but allowed her to work closely with Daesh cells in Turkey.
Ismail Omar Mostefai, a Frenchman of Algerian origin who took part in the attack on the Bataclan concert hall that killed 89 people on November 13, 2015 (due to coordinated attacks of 130 people in total), traveled to Turkey in late 2013 and then moved to Syria. He was known to Turkish intelligence, who tracked his movements and shared details with French authorities in December 2014 and June 2015.
Brussels terrorists Ibrahim al-Bakrawi and his brother Khalid al-Bakrawi, who were involved in the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of Belgium on March 22, 2016, killing 32 civilians, also ended up in Turkey.
Ibrahim al-Bakraoui, a Belgian citizen of Moroccan origin, flew to the tourist town of Antalya in Turkey on June 11, 2015, and traveled to the border province of Gaziantep on June 14. He was caught three days later trying to enter Syria and deported to the Netherlands on July 14, 2015.
His brother Khalid al-Bakrawi entered Turkey on 4 November 2014 via Istanbul Airport. They allowed him in without any issues. He left Turkey 10 days later on his own. The travel ban for Khalid al-Bakrawi was imposed on 12 December 2015, after Belgium issued a warrant for his arrest on the same day.
Accomplices of Anis Amri, a Tunisian who drove into a Christmas market in Berlin on December 19, 2016, ramming 12 people to death, were detained in Turkey after the incident.
German citizens of Lebanese origin, identified as Muhammad Ali K., Yusuf D. and Bilal Yosef M., were arrested in March 2016 during a police intelligence operation as the suspects were about to leave Turkey. A fourth person, a German citizen of Jordanian origin, was also detained in the western Turkish city of Izmir.
Akbarjon Jalilov, a Russian citizen born in Kyrgyzstan, killed 14 people using a bomb in the St. Petersburg metro on April 3, 2017. He traveled to Turkey in late 2015 and spent a year there before being deported for violating immigration rules in December 2016.
Rakhmat Akilov, an Uzbek citizen who crashed a truck into a crowd in Stockholm on April 7, 2017 and killed five people, also spent some time in Turkey, tried to cross to Syria and was deported to Sweden.
Salman Abedi, a British citizen of Libyan origin, killed 22 people at a pop concert in the northern English city of Manchester when he blew himself up on May 22, 2017. Before the attack, he was in Libya and returned to the UK via Turkey and Germany. He was allegedly supported by accomplices in Turkey.
Yousef Zaghba, one of the three London Bridge attackers who killed eight people on June 3, 2017, was detained in Italy in 2016 as he tried to enter Syria via Turkey. Zagba had dual Moroccan and Italian citizenship.
In this regard, we note that there is no evidence of specific contacts between these defendants and Daesh emissaries, which is not surprising, given the lack of real interaction between Turkish and European intelligence services.
The Erdogan government was forced to take measures (and even so, in many respects they were purely demonstrative) against Daesh only after loud international criticism and pressure put on Turkey.
The same thing happened with Al-Farooq’s office. The crackdown on key Daesh fighters in Turkey forced them to move their key operations to the Al-Sham office, although the al-Farouk office remained open and Daesh still conducts its operations through it, raising funds and recruiting new fighters directly through the Turkish border in northern Syria, including in areas controlled by the Turkish armed forces and associated militant groups.
The Daesh leader Abdel-Rahman al-Salbi was assassinated on February 3 by US forces in the Atma region, which is effectively controlled by Turkey. It was impossible for MIT not to know about al-Salbi, since Atma, located near the Turkish border, is MIT’s base for undercover operations in Syria.
Thousands of fighters, both Turkish and foreign, have used Turkish territory to cross into Syria with the help of smugglers to fight there for the Daesh groups. MIT facilitated their travel by using Kilis, a border province in southeastern Turkey, with one of the main border crossings into Daesh-controlled territory.
Smugglers are known to have been active in the border area, although Turkish authorities have often turned a blind eye to their travels in and out of Syria.
The Erdogan government has always maintained that Turkey is the only NATO country that has fought Dasesh on the ground, while hiding the true nature of the alleged crackdown on the jihadist group.
Turkish officials do not disclose the number of successful Daesh member convictions and refuse to answer parliamentary questions requiring such information. Instead, they often publish figures on the number of detentions and, in some cases, arrests, which in many cases lead to acquittal and release.
Police detained 2,438 Daesh suspects in 2021, but only 487 of them were formally arrested, corresponding to a 20 percent arrest rate, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said.
In other words, four out of five suspected Daesh suspects have never been jailed.
The minister did not provide data on how many people were released after their arrest. In most cases, Daesh suspects who were formally arrested before trial were released by Turkish courts at the first hearing.
Source: Middle East Institute
As part of an effort to reorganize after heavy losses in the US-led global campaign against Daesh, the group established a back-up branch in Turkey in 2017 called the Al-Faruq office, which is still active today.
The office was created primarily to manage the Daesh network in Eastern Europe, Russia and the Caucasus. The main office, which managed operations in Syria and Iraq under the Al-Sham office in Syria, remained the key control center of the jihadist organization’s provincial headquarters for managing the Daesh global network.
At the same time, the Daesh leadership believed that it could take advantage of the favorable environment provided by the Erdogan government in Turkey, which it had used in the past to transport fighters, raise funds and supply logistics.
To some extent, the Daesh leaders were right, since in most cases the Turkish authorities turned a blind eye to Daesh operations. The criminal justice system functioned like a revolving door for Daesh suspects, as most were quickly released after brief detentions and numerous acquittals.
White House Middle East Coordinator and a former U.S. envoy to the global anti-ISIS coalition Brett McGurk explicitly accused Turkey of denying “any serious collaboration with Daesh, even as 40,000 foreign fighters have passed through its territory into Syria.”. Tal Abyad, a Syrian border town, was a major supply route for ISIS in 2014-2015, with weapons and fighters freely flowing fr om Turkey to Raqqa and Iraq. Turkey has refused repeated and detailed requests to close its side of the border with US help and assistance.”
McGurk pointed out that Turkey also refused to allow the US military to fly out of the Incirlik Air Base to strike Daesh positions, even when Daesh fighters were infiltrating Syria from Turkey.
Data from investigations into terrorist attacks by Daesh supporters (or those episodes for which Daesh claimed responsibility) show that many of them spent time in Turkey, wh ere they were connected to the Daesh network under the supervision of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT).
For instance, Hayat Boumeddiene, a French citizen of Algerian origin who was a female accomplice of the Islamists behind the deadly attacks in Paris in January 2015, arrived in Turkey on January 2, 2015 and stayed in Istanbul for two days before traveling to the province of Sanlıurfa at the border. There she spent four days before heading to Turkey and crossing the border into Syria. Turkish intelligence tracked her movements and listened in on her conversations, but allowed her to work closely with Daesh cells in Turkey.
Ismail Omar Mostefai, a Frenchman of Algerian origin who took part in the attack on the Bataclan concert hall that killed 89 people on November 13, 2015 (due to coordinated attacks of 130 people in total), traveled to Turkey in late 2013 and then moved to Syria. He was known to Turkish intelligence, who tracked his movements and shared details with French authorities in December 2014 and June 2015.
Brussels terrorists Ibrahim al-Bakrawi and his brother Khalid al-Bakrawi, who were involved in the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of Belgium on March 22, 2016, killing 32 civilians, also ended up in Turkey.
Ibrahim al-Bakraoui, a Belgian citizen of Moroccan origin, flew to the tourist town of Antalya in Turkey on June 11, 2015, and traveled to the border province of Gaziantep on June 14. He was caught three days later trying to enter Syria and deported to the Netherlands on July 14, 2015.
His brother Khalid al-Bakrawi entered Turkey on 4 November 2014 via Istanbul Airport. They allowed him in without any issues. He left Turkey 10 days later on his own. The travel ban for Khalid al-Bakrawi was imposed on 12 December 2015, after Belgium issued a warrant for his arrest on the same day.
Accomplices of Anis Amri, a Tunisian who drove into a Christmas market in Berlin on December 19, 2016, ramming 12 people to death, were detained in Turkey after the incident.
German citizens of Lebanese origin, identified as Muhammad Ali K., Yusuf D. and Bilal Yosef M., were arrested in March 2016 during a police intelligence operation as the suspects were about to leave Turkey. A fourth person, a German citizen of Jordanian origin, was also detained in the western Turkish city of Izmir.
Akbarjon Jalilov, a Russian citizen born in Kyrgyzstan, killed 14 people using a bomb in the St. Petersburg metro on April 3, 2017. He traveled to Turkey in late 2015 and spent a year there before being deported for violating immigration rules in December 2016.
Rakhmat Akilov, an Uzbek citizen who crashed a truck into a crowd in Stockholm on April 7, 2017 and killed five people, also spent some time in Turkey, tried to cross to Syria and was deported to Sweden.
Salman Abedi, a British citizen of Libyan origin, killed 22 people at a pop concert in the northern English city of Manchester when he blew himself up on May 22, 2017. Before the attack, he was in Libya and returned to the UK via Turkey and Germany. He was allegedly supported by accomplices in Turkey.
Yousef Zaghba, one of the three London Bridge attackers who killed eight people on June 3, 2017, was detained in Italy in 2016 as he tried to enter Syria via Turkey. Zagba had dual Moroccan and Italian citizenship.
In this regard, we note that there is no evidence of specific contacts between these defendants and Daesh emissaries, which is not surprising, given the lack of real interaction between Turkish and European intelligence services.
The Erdogan government was forced to take measures (and even so, in many respects they were purely demonstrative) against Daesh only after loud international criticism and pressure put on Turkey.
The same thing happened with Al-Farooq’s office. The crackdown on key Daesh fighters in Turkey forced them to move their key operations to the Al-Sham office, although the al-Farouk office remained open and Daesh still conducts its operations through it, raising funds and recruiting new fighters directly through the Turkish border in northern Syria, including in areas controlled by the Turkish armed forces and associated militant groups.
The Daesh leader Abdel-Rahman al-Salbi was assassinated on February 3 by US forces in the Atma region, which is effectively controlled by Turkey. It was impossible for MIT not to know about al-Salbi, since Atma, located near the Turkish border, is MIT’s base for undercover operations in Syria.
Thousands of fighters, both Turkish and foreign, have used Turkish territory to cross into Syria with the help of smugglers to fight there for the Daesh groups. MIT facilitated their travel by using Kilis, a border province in southeastern Turkey, with one of the main border crossings into Daesh-controlled territory.
Smugglers are known to have been active in the border area, although Turkish authorities have often turned a blind eye to their travels in and out of Syria.
The Erdogan government has always maintained that Turkey is the only NATO country that has fought Dasesh on the ground, while hiding the true nature of the alleged crackdown on the jihadist group.
Turkish officials do not disclose the number of successful Daesh member convictions and refuse to answer parliamentary questions requiring such information. Instead, they often publish figures on the number of detentions and, in some cases, arrests, which in many cases lead to acquittal and release.
Police detained 2,438 Daesh suspects in 2021, but only 487 of them were formally arrested, corresponding to a 20 percent arrest rate, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said.
In other words, four out of five suspected Daesh suspects have never been jailed.
The minister did not provide data on how many people were released after their arrest. In most cases, Daesh suspects who were formally arrested before trial were released by Turkish courts at the first hearing.
Source: Middle East Institute