By; Sonja van den Ende, original appeared in: UITPERS.be on 25/9/2016, updated 06-06-2021
Editor’s NOTE:
The Gülen coup 2016: I would like to add that although it’s highly likely that the coup was conducted by the CIA, through people like Yahla, it’s not proven. The Gülen movement is a powerful movement, with many supporters in the US and Europe. But it’s also clear that many “leftist” and secular journalists etc, in Turkey, have been put in jail, because of their exposure of the facts – meaning the connection between; Turkey-ISIS-EU-NATO and US. Turkey now has turned it’s back to NATO-EU-US and is moving towards Russia. A clever “move” from Erdogan, but the facts are that Turkey is and was the strongest supporter of jihadist groups, among them ISIS and still is until today!
Turkish ex-police chief and his confession
A former senior counter terrorism official in Turkey and his confession. He says that Turkey and NATO, sponsoring the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS and Daesh), as a geopolitical tool, to expand the regional influence of Turkey and to allow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to eliminate his political opponents.
Ahmet Sait Yayla (photo) – was head of the “Counter-Terrorism and Operations Division” of the Turkish National Police between 2010 and 2012, before he became the head of the Department of Public Order and Crime Prevention in 2014. Previously, he worked for the Counter- Terrorism and Operations Division as a “mid-level manager” before he became head of the police in Ankara and Sanliurfa.
In interviews with various news outlets,” Yayla revealed that he had personally witnessed that the Turkish state is an IS sponsor. This led him to resign. He decided to become a whistle blower, especially after the authoritarian behavior of Erdogan, after the failed military coup last July (2016). This is the first time that the former counter terrorism chief reveals what he knows about the support of the Turkish government to Islamic terror groups.
The former counter terrorism chief of the Turkish National Police speaks with a considerable risk for himself and his family. As part of the crackdown from Erdogan after the failed military coup in July, his 19 year old son Yavuz was prevented from leaving the country and eventually arrested on charges of terrorism.
Yayla, has just published his new book (2016): ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate. (1) Co-author Professor Anne Speckhard, a NATO and Pentagon consultant specializing in the psychology of radicalization.
“Turkey is a supporter of the Islamic State and other jihadi groups,” Yayla said. “I know this first hand, as a former head of the Turkish National Police. What I experienced is why I ended up going to the police. And secondly, due to the former ISIS terrorists who I interviewed as part of my research into the jihadist phenomenon. Many of them say that ISIS has the official support of the Turkish government. “
Yayla is the first Turkish counter terrorism official who can claim at first-hand, to have knowledge of the secret support of Erdogan to Islamist terrorist groups. He has a thorough knowledge of the relationship of the government with IS, has worked closely with senior government officials in Ankara – including Erdogan himself – to discuss operations. “I know how agreements with ISIS are made. How they help ISIS immediately. “
Humanitarian terror
Yayla said that the controversial allegations in the Turkish press on support for militant groups in Syria by a Turkish charity organization, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), are inaccurate and are a reflection of a troubled relationship between the Turkish government and jihadi groups .
On January 3, 2014, the Turkish daily “Hurriyet” reported that the Turkish police found a considerable amount of ammunition and weapons in trucks, for a so-called relief organization IHH. Who allegedly transported Humanitarian aid , but actually provided Islamist rebels with weapons and ammunition in Syria .
From testimonies during the court proceedings, it was revealed that the trucks have been accompanied by officials of the Turkish National Intelligence Organisation (MIT). According to the court documents, there were missile components, ammunition and mortar shells found, which were intended for areas in Syria that were under jihadist control since late 2013 and early 2014.
But the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan prohibited the Turkish media from reporting on the findings of the court proceedings. The allegations in court, stated the Government, were part of a conspiracy organized by the Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, residing in the United States to undermine Erdogan’s presidency.
According to Ahmet Yayla, the allegations against Erdogan and IHH are correct and there is no connection with the gülen conspiracy. “I was indirectly involved in the investigation of IHH,” Yayla said. Based on the findings of the investigation which indicated the leader of IHH was arrested and a significant supporter of Isis. “IHH has supplied weapons and ammunition to many jihadi groups, not only to ISIS,” Yayla says.
The IHH also had a ship in the Gaza flotilla, which departed from Turkey, and wanted to bring humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip in 2010, but was stopped by Israeli forces. Even before the incident with the IHH flotilla, it had been one of the main partners of the Turkish International Cooperation Agency (TIKA) – the official charity of the Turkish government. “But the IHH distributed not only humanitarian goods. It was also about weapons, “according to Yayla”.
Turkish Hezbollah
Hakan Fidan since 2010 head of the Turkish National Intelligence MIT (Photo)
The great benefactor of the IHH within the Turkish government was Hakan Fidan (see photo) who had led TIKA from 2003 to 2007. He is a former Turkish military officer who became deputy minister and prime minister in 2007. Since 2010 he is the head of the Turkish National Intelligence Service MIT. According to Ahmet Yayla, Fidan was the prime suspect in a series of terrorist attacks in the 90s, when Yayla worked as a policeman in Ankara. The killings were against leftist Turkish intellectuals from the newspaper Cumhuriyet. Because of the police investigation Fidan fled to Germany and then to the United States. When Erdogan’s Party for Justice and Development (AKP) came to power, Fidan returned to Turkey, to become the head of the Turkish International Cooperation Agency (TIKA). He disappeared from the list of wanted persons. Turkish Hezbollah is a Sunni Islamic terrorist organization that emerged in the 1980s and was originally run by a Kurdish faction. The organization was particularly active against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has sparked a lot of war and conflicts since last year with the Turkish army and openly supports violence as a goal to establish an Islamic state in Turkey. According to Yayla, it became clear during a police investigation that TH has ties with the security apparatus of Turkey.
It was been already confirmed in 1995 in a report by the Turkish parliament . TH now has not yet renounced violence, but gives priority to political activities. The violent legacy still lives. There is a direct link between TH, al Qaeda and ISIS.
Halis Bayancuk (see photo), aka Abu Hanzala,was the Emir of Isis in Turkey. Turkey previously had, on the national public broadcaster TRT, him “Bayancuk” identified as the head of the Turkish branch of Al-Queda. Bayancuk is also the son of Haci Bayancuk, one of the founding members of TH.
Police Operations in 2007 in Bingol and Koceeli and in 2008 in Istanbul, Ankara and Diyarbakir, t exposed a high-level cooperation between TH leaders and al-Qaeda. It was discovered that a network of al Qaeda in Turkey, which was led by Muhammad Yaser, who operated on behalf of TH. Today a splinter faction of TH is fighting with ISIS and other extremist factions in Syria, according to the Turkish journalist Sibel Hurtas.
Daesh, bastard child of the Turkish “deep state”
The Foundation for Humanitarian Aid (IHH) delivers its humanitarian credentials through its partnership with the Turkish state and is the “perfect cover” for Erdogan to carry out his secret Syrian strategy and to escalate the conflict. This secret strategy was continued under the leadership of Fidan, the new head of the Turkish MIT. If the statements of Yayla are correct, the current head of the powerful MIT in Turkey is a member of the Al-Queda affiliated Turkish Hezbollah.
From about 2012, Yayla said, several hundred trucks have brought “deliveries” sent by IHH to Syria. He further described a number of active police operations against IHH as a result of the relations of the Agency with Al Qaeda, having close ties with IHH, they were agents of al Qaeda and ISIS. There foremost mission: supplying weapons to jihadist groups across the border.
Although, Erdogan and his ministers condemned the police operation, he (Erdogan) confirmed that the operation was the result of an ongoing police investigation into jihadist support within Turkey – and no Gülen conspiracy.
The IHH was the only channel for these actions in support of the Syrian jihadists. “The rest of the operations were performed directly by the MIT,” Yayla said. “The MIT openly sends trucks with arms and explosives to Syria. Potential combatants were transported by buses .. Some of them were captured by us, the Turkish police. “
Talks with Ahmet Yayla to various new outlets and his book” provided first insider information that Erdogan government’s eyes were closed for the fighters who crossed the border with Syria. He knew that Turkish police had noticed the role of MIT’s in the case and that the Turkish police knew that the Turkish intelligence MIT was directly involved in support of ISIS.
“MIT transported in 2014 and 2015 buses full of terrorists from Hatay to Sanliurfa. Sometimes they were deposited at the border, sometimes they were brought across the border. If the terrorists returned, the buses were often stopped for drug control. Turkish border guards found Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition. The passengers were then arrested and interrogated. The bus drivers did openly admit that MIT had hired them to transport the terrorists and foreign fighters, “said Yayla, who was not directly involved in these operations, but it came to his attention, because as senior police officer, he had unrestricted access to all relevant documents.
Bombs for charity
The IHH has long been a suspect of terrorist links by Western intelligence. A confidential message from the US embassy in Istanbul, dated July 21, 2006, which was confirmed by Wikileaks stated that the IHH was a “suspect of international terrorist financing … In 1997, local staff of the headquarters of IHH were arrested in Istanbul, after a raid by security forces with arms, explosives, and instructions for making bombs was discovered. “
Yayla confirms that the police raid at IHH was directly linked, in 1997 between the foundation and AL-Queda. The IHH personnel, he said, were prepared for combat operations in Chechnya, Bosnia and Afghanistan. Documents revealed that the secret weapons were delivered to groups linked to Osama bin Laden. Later ISIS supporters also sent regularly unpunished components and explosives to Syria for improvised bombs.
Photos that Yayla obtained directly from former ISIS members show how ISIS members deal with the so-called “hell canons bombs” (see photo) made of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) filled gas cylinders. The parts were made in Konya, a city in Turkey where hundreds of ISIS followers lived and still live. “A former ISIS member said that these stocks, piled up in warehouses, are protected by Turkish security forces,” said Yayla.
ISIS members who made these “Hell cannon bombs”, confirmed that the parts were transported by trucks across the border to Syria to use the bombs. The trucks passed through the Turkish customs without any problems. “They killed hundreds of civilians and children in Syria,” Yayla said. “They are very effective. The defector explained that they were at least ten times more powerful and deadly than regular mortars. All materials for these bombs were brought into Syria from Turkey. “
The police must protect ISIS
Ahmet Yayla’s personal experience with the Turkish official sponsorship of Isis, which perhaps is the most devastating part. “I’ve seen it a couple of times with my own eyes and ears, seen and heard how the governor of Sanliurfa [a town on the border between Turkey and Syria] spoke with leaders of terrorist groups in Syria,” according to Yayla.
In some “well secured” meetings with the heads of the police, Yayla and his colleagues waited, while the governor held telephone conversations with rebel leaders. “It was really shocking,” Yayla said. “He (the governor) talked openly about the situation in Syria, and repeated questions over the phone about how he could help in providing everything they needed, food, medicine, weapons, literally everything they needed.”
He ordered me, the governor – who was appointed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs -that I (Yayla) would ensure the protection of hundreds of ISIS fighters who were taken to Turkey to receive medical treatment.
“I’m the head of the police, which was asked by the governor to monitor ISIS terrorists. And I was ordered for this task, “Yayla said. “The official police data shows that dispensation still exists. This data can not be destroyed. “
The battle near the Turkish border was so intense as from 2013 that hundreds of jihadist rebels were wounded. “ISIS fighters were brought across the border to Sanliurfa and were treated in Turkish hospitals. As head of the police, I was asked by the governor to send my police officers to the wounded, and give them day and night protection. It came to a point that so many ISIS members were treated, I could not find enough agents to monitor the terrorists. “The policy of providing free medical aid to ISIS fighters lasted two years, until 2015. Under pressure from President Obama to close the borders, Erdogan stopped it!
Yayla had many doubts about what happened and was therefore removed from his position by the Governor If was against terrorism and my tasks before the protection of these same terrorists was “to intervene, for example by speaking to relatives in order to prevent further radicalization. So my officers started to intervene as soon as we detected ISIS activities. “But the governor disagreed and instead of catching them, I should protect them.
The Governer, therefore, did not like what I was doing, so he fired me out of the “counter-terrorism unit.” Because of my seniority in the Turkish National Police, he could not get rid of me. So instead he made me responsible for the Ministry of public policy and research. “
The most shocking accusation from Yayla is that the Turkish government has protected , the leader of the Turkish ISIS, Halis Bayancuk, also known as Abu Hanzala, the son of one of the founders of the Turkish Hezbollah “My sources confirmed to the police that Erdogan in 2015, gave Bayancuk 24h full police protection,” . “I still have contact with other police sources and police chiefs. They still know about the Turkish authorities protection and cooperating with ISIS and that their efforts are thwarted to arrest ISIS members by the Department of Counter-Terrorism. “The failed coup, says Yayla, gave Erdogan the perfect opportunity to arrest these policemen on the pretext that they were suspected of involvement in the conspiracy of Gülen.
Turkey, a logistics haven for ISIS
Turkey, a key member of NATO and alleged ally of the West in the fight against ISIS, has now become a safe haven for jihadists “Isis had a major logistics base in Gaziantep, where all uniforms are made, probably more than 60,000 in the past two years. “special apartment blocks” inhabited by jihadists who do not even bother to hide among the local population. They walk around in their distinctive clothes, don’t even shave their beards off and want to cross the border with Syria.
But it goes further than that. Yayla said that he, back in Turkey, interviewed members of ISIS who left the group. He wrote it down in his book “Isis defectors” and in a recent article in the journal “Perspectives on Terrorism” which he wrote with Anne Spec Hard. (2)
The Turkish press published allegations of Erdogan’s son-in-law, that he was directly involved in oil smuggling by ISIS. The government denied this, but the ex-members of ISIS confirmed the role of Turkey and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, that they were involved in the sale of oil by ISIS.
The oil route from Syria went through northern Iraq. A portion of the oil goes directly to Turkey, another part is first mixed with Iraqi oil. Isis earned so much cash that they gave up counting the money, but made a calculation based on the weight of the banknotes. Both Turkey and the KRG protected the transports. Tankers couldn’t stop at the Turkish border without driving. The Turkish government has never responded to the accusations and is not very interested in an investigation.
Photo: Abu al-Baghdadi’s deputy, Fadhil Ahmed al Hayali, was injured in an American bombing raid. He lost his leg and he was taken to one of the Turkish hospitals and treated. Then he returned to Syria.
NATO and the terror
Why should Turkey have funded Isis? The terrorist group has indeed also attacked Turkey in recent years, so they claim and Turkey was the target (airport, tourists attacks, military attacks) and hit the Turkish Yayla speculates (in his book) that the political corruption at the highest levels of the government of Erdogan has undermined the national security of the Turkish society. “I think Erdogan wants to create a new Turkish state, an amalgam of Salafism and political Islam,” said Yayla. “Make no mistake. For Erdogan, political Islam is just a handy tool to consolidate its support base in Turkey. And it is now his main instrument to use it against all domestic opposition, opposite his rule. Especially the Kurd’s, who form a powerful force against ISIS. “
The most disturbing of all is the deafening silence of NATO. In response to the allegations that the Turkish state sponsored ISIS , a NATO spokesman still claims to be lying and considers Turkey as a victim: “Turkey is a NATO ally, who is directly exposed to the violence and instability in Syria and Iraq. All the other allies were trying to help and protect Turkey with a series of measures, including the deployment of the Patriot missile defense system. The fight against ISIS required a comprehensive and sustained effort, including the removal of illegal financing of ISIS and the influx of foreign fighters. Turkey provides and strengthens a crucial contribution to, by allowing among other NATO allies to the air base of Incirlik for the security of its border with Syria.
http://www.uitpers.be/artikel/2016/09/25/erdogan-en-navo-bondgenoten-van-is/
Notes:
(1) Anne Speckhard en Ahmet S. Yayla, ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate, Advances Press, LLC, McLean Virginia, juli 2016.
(2) Anne Speckhard en Ahmet S. Yayla, Eyewitness Accounts from Recent Defectors from Islamic State: Why They Joined, What They Saw, Why They Quit, inPerspectives on Terrorism, Vol 9, No 6 (2015).
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