Leaked
wiretaps of ISIS agents show Ankara routinely ignores terrorist
cross-border activity
RT,
14
April, 2016
Thousands
of ISIS associates have been routinely crossing into Syria aided by
contacts in Turkey, phone calls tapped by Ankara security forces and
handed to the media by opposition MP Erem Erdem reveal. He accuses
the government of a massive cover-up.
Transcribed
phone recordings belonging to Ilhami Bali, well known in Islamic
State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) ranks and suspected of staging
high-profile bomb attacks in Ankara and the mainly-Kurdish border
city of Suruc, detail the lack of control along the Syrian Turkish
border. The 98-kilometer (61-mile) stretch of border has only two
crossings, the Jarablus and Al Rai entry points across from Turkey’s
Gaziantep and Kilis.
Pressured
by the international community to impose stricter border controls to
stem the flood of militants into Syria, Ankara has been erecting
walls at key crossing points, but to no avail as surveillance data
from the Municipality of Ankara Provincial Security Department
revealed.
The
transcripts of the recordings have been passed on to the media by
Turkish opposition politician, Eren Erdem of the Republican People's
Party (CHP), who is facing a witch-hunt from President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s government over his repeated allegations of massive
cover-up of IS activity on Turkish soil.
While
daily logs by the Turkish Armed Forces reveal that Turkish security
forces apprehended 961 IS members from 57 countries in 2015, the
alleged reality exposed by the Erdem leak, shows that thousands of IS
fighters and their family members cross the Turkish border from Syria
on a daily basis. But even those who get arrested on the Turkish side
are often released at the crossing points.
For
instance several documents suggest that IS coordinators helped some
1,400 people cross the Turkish border from September 22 – October
17. In one of the phone conversations, Ilhami Bali asked his
interlocutor named Erkek, who according to the conversations helps
smuggle people, the exact number of persons he has helped cross the
border.
As
the men argue about the actual number of all those who entered and
left Turkey, the conversation reveals that the actual count of people
passing through to the Turkish side is actually more than IS
coordinators have presumed.
Another
conversations between the two subjects revealed Bali was extremely
dissatisfied with Erkek’s performance as he failed to help IS
operatives cross the border.
“Did
you get our people through?” Bali asked Erkek, who replied that he
was not the one guiding the group in question.
“What?
Are you the one who is responsible that they got arrested? Don’t
lie to me! Don't lie to me. Eighteen people crossed the border last
night. Fifteen of them got arrested when you tried to help them,”
Bali said.
“Listen
to me, I have warned you,” added Bali, losing his temper. “If I
ever hear that you try to pass our guys through, I will come in your
house and shoot you to your head. I will shoot your head while you’re
in bed.”
However,
as other conversations have shown, IS operatives and contacts on the
Turkish side of the border help those IS affiliates detained by
Turkish security forces to evade justice.
“One
brother, two sisters and one child were arrested while they tried to
cross [at Kilis]. How could this happen? I do not understand,”
wondered Erkek in another phone call.
“We
have called and gave them the information,” Bali replied. “We
talked to the brother who will look after the people who were
arrested. Inshallah will look after them.”
RT
More
conversations between the two subjects further confirm that those who
get arrested are later released through IS connections at police
stations.
“The
guy from the Gendarmerie called me and said that they were in the
smuggler car,” Bali told Erkek in a conversations about another
group detained at the border. “Call this guy. The people who got
arrested today are at the Gandermarie station. Maybe he can do
something… Gendarmerie took them under arrest. If they can let them
free they should do that.”
Bali’s
conversation with another IS operative, Mustafa Demir, offers
apparent proof that the IS terror group is smuggling its fighters
into Turkey for medical treatment.
“You
know this Abu Abdella Garip who gets out the wounded people? Now Ali
Mantara will come. He will bring a brother. He will call you when he
arrives... Take the numbers and send them to the administration [of
the crossing]. So the administration will look after them,” Mustafa
Demir tells Bali.
“Where
should I bring Abdullah Garip who helps cross the wounded ones?
Should I take him to madrasa?” Bali asked.
“Send
them to madrasa and call Ebu Abdallah and tell him that five persons
are with Garip Geli... tell him that he should write down their
names... So we can control how many left from here,” Demir replies.
In
another conversation Erkek asks Bali what should “one wounded
person” do when he comes to Turkey.
“I
don't really know. It has nothing to do with us,” Bali replied.
“Tell them they should go to the border to the administration
there.”
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