The Turkish Republic of Terror: The Exposed Frontier for Smuggling of Daesh militants into Syria

Shaima Hafezy

The name of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was linked to “helping terrorist groups” from the Brotherhood to the organization of Daesh, which moved to the land of the alleged caliphate through Turkish territory, which was “wide open” under Erdogan’s eyes.

In a number of reports, Foreign Policy magazine noted Erdogan’s relationship with terrorist groups, particularly Daesh. In a February report, the magazine said that in return for Erdogan’s ideology the Salafism that inspires Daesh is an extremist ideology. Even if ostensibly they do not belong to each other, Erdogan’s personal faith has roots in these methods, and his political interests depend on their continued support. The magazine added that Erdogan has “sympathy” with terrorism and may turn a blind eye to it, while suppressing Kurdish allies who helped the US forces to hit Daesh in Syria.

In a previous report, the magazine said that Ankara, despite its pledge to eradicate remnants of Daesh from Syria, has repeatedly hesitated to launch a direct war on the extremist organization; and that is because Turkey prefers to focus on its arch enemy of the Kurds.

Turkey has been playing a double game for years. “The Turkish president sees ending the existence of Daesh as a second priority, which is always ignored.”

The report pointed out that Daesh may take from Turkey a background supply base for the battles in Syria, in the case of the US withdrawal, given the easy penetration of the common border between the two countries. This comes especially as Turkey was the biggest corridor of the organization’s militants, who were flowing to Syria across its long northern border, before becoming a refuge for those who fled.

The story of the transit of terrorists to Syria via Turkish territory is not a mere speculation. Official documents obtained by the German newspaper Spiegel Online reveal that Turkey was “the perfect transit country for extremists to organize a terrorist organization in Syria”.

A team of investigative reporters in the German newspaper have seen hundreds of passports obtained by the Syrian Democratic Forces with Turkish seals proving long-standing accusations that Turkey has secured a safe passage for terrorists to join the Damascus-based organization.

In its report published this month, it described Turkey as the “bottleneck” of the world; it allowed the transit and travel of tens of thousands of people from about 100 countries, especially from the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, in 2013 to join a sympathetic organization in Syria and Iraq.

The German newspaper said: “By following the words and the path of those who joined the organization, it turned out that they were walking the same way almost to reach Turkey’s Daesh.”

The Spiegel and Spiegel TV research team obtained an entire box full of official evidence about Turkey’s role and included more than 100 passports of sympathetic followers from 21 countries captured by Kurdish militia officers in recent months, including some Germans and many from Indonesia, Russia and Tunisia, but also from unexpected countries like Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa and Slovenia.

Names, languages ​​and nationalities vary among members of the organization from different countries, but one point is similar to “at least one stamp for entry into Turkey.”

According to SPIEGEL Online, “Sometimes there are three seals and three entry stamps, which corresponds to the fact that at first until 2014, many jihadists came to the Kingdom of Terror and stayed there for a short time. After two or three months they left again to recruit more willing people.”

In addition to the entry stamps, the passports do not have an exit seal from Turkey, meaning they have never officially left Turkey. They have either crossed the border into Syria from less controlled areas, or have gone there through smuggling.