The Investigative Journal had released an episode in August, disclosing exclusive wiretaps, audio recordings, and documents that prove collusion between the Turkish intelligence and terrorist groups inside Syria, sourced by former Turkish chief of police, Ahmet Yayla, who was defected to the US in objection to the support President Erdogan has given to jihadists that kill journalists, aid workers, women, children and innocent people in Syria and the region.
The episode, presented by Tal Heinrich, communicates an inside story of a normalised horror which we all know to be true: Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is behind ISIS.
Explaining the cross-border incursion of Ankara into Syria in 2016, which was carried out under the guise of defeating ISIS, Tal explains that in actuality Erdogan sought to prevent an armed Kurdish entity from being formed on the Turkey-Syria occupation border. “And what about stopping terrorist groups such as ISIS? Well, as it appears, that was never the main goal,” emphasises Tal. “Even before Turkey officially launched it’s offensive in Syria, it has armed the very same forces it allegedly pledged to defeat.”
Former Turkish chief of police, Ahmet Yayla:
“We started to realise the Erdogan government was up to different operations at the borders. I was serving at the time after 2010 as the chief of counter-terrorism at the Syrian border in the city of Sanliurfa. one of the largest cities at the border between Syria and Turkey.
After the Arab spring, the Erdogan government decided to have an extensive role in the Syrian government and with that, they started to support the jihadists who were fighting against Bashar Assad at the time. The first group [which Erdogan supported] if you go back to 2010, was the free Syrian army and then the understanding even with the international community, including the United States, was that the fact that they are fighting Bashar Assad, they are local militias so it was OK to support them. But once the Salafi jihadists started to invade those strongholds controlled by the Free Syrian Army militia the spectrum changed very fast because the Free Syrian Army militias were not trained very well, they were not equipped well so they were losing the struggle between those jihadists and themselves including Al-Nusra and ISIS. So, therefore, they lost their ground very fast.
With that, the international community stopped supporting them but Turkey increased its efforts to arm and support those groups. so the support switched from the Free Syrian Army to the Salafi jihadists. The main recipients of this support were Al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, and any jihadist group affiliated with Al-Nusra. ISIS came to the scene after 2014 when they announced the caliphate so turkey was very careful with its operations regarding ISIS.
Erdogan government worked directly with the Turkish National Intelligence, MIT. The director of MIT is Hakan Fidan, a former trustee of Erdogan, who was appointed as the director of the MIT for these kinds of operations: to enable Erdogan both in Turkey and internationally. He ran these operations personally through a group established inside the MIT, independent from regular MIT structures.”
Exiled Turkish journalist, Abdullah Bozkurt
“From the thousands of the pages I have managed to acquire from the confidential sources and some of the interviews I have done with former security officials from turkey and some of the investigative journals; I have managed to map out the transfer of the illegal weaponry from Turkey to Syria for the use of the jihadist groups, sometime al-Qaeda groups, sometime al-Qaeda splinter groups and at times, of course, the IS in Iraq and the levant aswell were able to use these weapons in their proxy wars.
The Turkish government know very well that when you send these shipments of heavy weaponry to several groups in Syria essentially that weaponry will be distributed to other groups. They were being sold they were being stolen and through other means, they were being scattered all over Syria.
These shipments, of course, had been illegal under Turkish law and it was illegal of course under the international laws because the Turkish government, or rather the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been fanning out and fuelling the armed conflict in a neighbouring country.”
Former Turkish chief of police, Ahmet Yayla:
“Turkish national police work independently from MIT, the Turkish national intelligence, they are different bodies. And the judiciary was also, at the time, independent. Under normal circumstances, because this is an illegal act – providing arms to the terrorists, [the] Erdogan government could not work with the Turkish police and the judiciary. And in fact, Erdogan never trusted the police and the judiciary. he had always reservations towards them. Particularly he never forgot the fact that he was investigated for his corruption and for his close circles and his family members’ corruptions in the past.
With the MIT after assigning Hakan Fidan as the director of the MIT, he realised that the only way he could achieve his goal was through working with the MIT directly with a small group of agents, not the whole agency. So therefore what the MIT was doing was transferring those weapons independently by working with special agents without the knowledge of local MIT agents.
When I was talking to the local MIT agents was the fact that they were not aware of these shipments. The headquarters in Ankara was not informing them of what was happening. In fact, I know two senior MIT directors in the region, one was in charge of the whole region. There are 7 regions under MIT structures they resigned. because the centre was not talking with them, they were carrying out operations without their knowledge and they were aware of the fact that those shipments were being sent through their jurisdictions but they had no control. It was extremely questionable and suspicious, and they did not want to be responsible for those actions so they resigned.
MIT was working directly with truck companies, transportation companies, they were hiding those companies to transport those weapons directly to Syria. And when the prosecutors intervened and interrogated the drivers of those trucks, they revealed everything. how they were getting the cargo from MIT warehouses in Ankara and then transferring those weapons to Syria and in fact they had been doing this for a long time. This was only one incident on the Adana highway when they were captured.”
“On a weekly average, two or three shipments were delivered under the cover of night by trucks with no record or incoming air cargo at the airport logs. The operation often saw Qatari planes landing with arms in their cargo.”
When asked about Qatari involvement in the hidden shipments, Yayla responded: “that’s correct they used Ankara airport. Qatar is a direct supporter of Erdogan’s policies in the region Erdogan and the Qatar emir work together hand in hand. Qatar emir supported Erdogan’s objectives in the region. They provided particularly the cash flow for those jihadists, so their activities intersect. They’re objectives intersect, therefore they work together. And the Qataris were very implicit in their actions to help the jihadists and also to work with Erdogan to help those jihadists. But it wasn’t just Esenboga airport. Their operations at Esenboga airport was becoming revealed so they started to use Gaziantep Airport. Those shipments were arriving at night.
There were several Volkswagen cargo events approaching those aeroplanes and taking the cargo and carrying those weapons out of the airport without any record. and in fact at the time the chief of police who was in charge of the airport brought this issue and he did not want the MIT to use the airport without any records.
He was harshly criticised by the MIT from the headquarters, they called the chief of police in Gaziantep. They told him just to deal with this issue we don’t want any problems.”
Explaining the wiretaps gained by the Investigative Journal, the presenter disclosed that during one night, at one cross point, ISIS smuggled anywhere from 50 to more than 11 militants into Turkey. 1440 militants crossed into Syria through via Turkey, ISIS smuggled 87 militants back into Turkey, 111 people were recorded entering Syria on a single day in March 2015.
