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Turkish support for ISIS

HoverBoarder

Graduate Poster
HoverBoarder
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May 18, 2011
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Most analysts would agree that the primary cash flow for ISIS runs through Turkey in the form of smuggled oil. In addition, most of their arms and fighters flow through Turkey.

While those factors could be explained by an ISIS utilization of the porous 565 Turkish-Syrian border, there have been a number of indications that Turkey has been actively supporting ISIS to further their own goals.

To answer the question of why Turkey would so blatantly put their neighbors and fellow NATO members at such risk, two primary reasons emerge:


First off is oil smuggling. BuzzFeed had a very good article looking into this trade with insider interviews on how the trade works. This Is How ISIS Smuggles Oil

As ISIS is estimated to make $1 million a day on smuggling oil, much of the vast middleman profits for this highly discounted oil goes to Turkey. This trade involves massive complicit border and police protection despite an alleged crackdown. However, famous Turkish whistleblower Fuat Avni has also claimed that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is himself involved in the illegal trade.

Corruption is a major problem for Turkey (Why Turkey’s Mother of All Corruption Scandals Refuses to Go Away), especially in Erdogen's own party. Erdogen also recently built a 1,000 room Presidential palace (A Look at President Erdogan's Opulent $615 Million Palace, Four Times the Size of Versailles). An almost direct flaunting of the smuggled oil wealth profits.


The second main reason why Turkey would support ISIS is because of their fight with the Kurds. When Turkey announced that they were going to change course and attack ISIS, almost all of their targets were against PKK and other Kurdish areas and forces. The strikes that were carried out were claimed by some ISIS members to be against empty ISIS targets, and that their "alliance" with Turkey was still intact.

More direct military cooperation between Turkey and ISIS has long been claimed by many people in Turkey, Syria, and abroad.

Some of the examples of this alleged cooperation is as follows:

'ISIS Sees Turkey as Its Ally': Former Islamic State Member Reveals Turkish Army Cooperation

Suruç bombing reignites speculation of cozy ties between AK Party and ISIL

With one of the most major evidence of their cooperation being the June 25th ISIS attack on Kobane.

Turkey 'let Isil cross border to attack Kobane': as it happened

Long after the main fight for Kobane was over, a large group of ISIS fighters were allowed to cross the Turkish border for an attack on primarily returned Kurdish civilians in a way that was simply impossible to happen if Turkish forces had not allowed it to happen.



The question for this thread is, how can this Turkish support for ISIS be stopped.

I think that the EU, UN, NATO, and the US should put pressure on Turkey to resume peace talks that they broke off with the PKK, YPG, and other Kurdish forces. They should also require the use of UN inspectors and monitors to reduce ISIS oil smuggling profits through Turkey, and stop Turkey from smuggling arms to ISIS or the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Nursa.
 
Here's a pretty detailed analysis of how the oil is coming to Turkey and where it is going from there. It's entitled "Britain’s secret ties to governments, firms behind ISIS oil sales" and in the fact that it is a much broader web lies the problem of stopping it with "political solutions", i.e. sanctions and whathaveyou. Maybe at the moment the best thing is indeed to name and shame forces into bombing the logistics, and if they only pretend to do so, do it yourself. Even if "yourself", i.e. Russia, has of course a huge self-interest in the well-being of the oil market aside all ISIS concerns.
 
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HoverBoarder said:
The question for this thread is, how can this Turkish support for ISIS be stopped.

I think that the EU, UN, NATO, and the US should put pressure on Turkey to resume peace talks that they broke off with the PKK, YPG, and other Kurdish forces. They should also require the use of UN inspectors and monitors to reduce ISIS oil smuggling profits through Turkey, and stop Turkey from smuggling arms to ISIS or the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Nursa.
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That would be nice, but ...
  1. Turkey has to live in that neighborhood.
  2. Turkey has to look out for Turkey.

The Turks are a major player in the local geopolitical area, and have complex relationships with all of their neighbors with whom they get along well enough to manage. The Turks aren't necessarily going to put a NATO priority over a national priority -- classic example of that was in 2002-2003, when they informed the US government that no, the 4th ID could not invade into Northern Iraq from Turkey. (That would have made the military phase shorter, though how it would have helped the "post hostility phase" that lasted until 2010 is vague at best). Some people were upset with the Turks, but I completely empathized with their situation: they have to live in that neighborhood, and the other NATO folks don't. So, Turkey had to make the best decision for Turkey, and they did.

As a mental exercise, try to see this whole mess through the eyes of a Turkish pol -- pick a party -- and figure out which of the mixed bag of parties in this mess one will support and how?

It's not as easy for them as it may look to us who are outsiders. Their long running and at times lethal disputes with various Kurdish factions isn't new.

@CE: I agree that naming and shaming of any and all in the oil smuggling chain would be a good idea. How did that work out with the smuggling ops when Saddam was evading the UNSC sanctions 1991-2003? Not so good.
 
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IS is not a functional state and will collapse to a large degree if there was no outside support for it. Hence the Diplomacy screws that must be applied to Turkey. Saudi Arabia must also come in for close scrutiny.
 
a_unique_person said:
IS is not a functional state and will collapse to a large degree if there was no outside support for it. Hence the Diplomacy screws that must be applied to Turkey. Saudi Arabia must also come in for close scrutiny.
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I admit some personal bias, but the place to get serious is in the latter.

(Bias: I used to work for a Turk)
 
a_unique_person said:
Your would expect that the Turkish border with Syria would be closely guarded. Apparently it is but movement into IS is not being stopped.
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How familiar are you with that terrain? I found that borders are difficult to close IRL, depending on terrain and political will. The Iraq Syria border and the Iran Iraq border for one, and the Saudi Iraq border for another. (The US Mexico border I'll leave for another thread, as its porosity is legendary).

When people are involved, it gets even more complicated, and when corruptible people are involved, the level of difficulty raises again. What struck me about all of this is that the border has certain gaps through which fuel laden trucks drive. That takes some human agency.

The simple movement of people? Not as much. People are remarkable in their tenacity once a goal is clear to them.
 
Darth Rotor said:
How familiar are you with that terrain? I found that borders are difficult to close IRL, depending on terrain and political will.
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Except there are reports of IS fighters walking in right under the noses of Turk military.
 
Are there any states that aren't being accused by somebody of helping ISIS at this point? Perhaps Poland has been left out, after all, they are only sending humanitarian aid.
 
Childlike Empress said:
Here's a pretty detailed analysis of how the oil is coming to Turkey and where it is going from there. It's entitled "Britain’s secret ties to governments, firms behind ISIS oil sales" and in the fact that it is a much broader web lies the problem of stopping it with "political solutions", i.e. sanctions and whathaveyou. Maybe at the moment the best thing is indeed to name and shame forces into bombing the logistics, and if they only pretend to do so, do it yourself. Even if "yourself", i.e. Russia, has of course a huge self-interest in the well-being of the oil market aside all ISIS concerns.
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Interesting link, but the author completely contradicted his first premise almost immediately.

While he does list a number of pieces of evidence showing how Turkey has been complicit in the ISIS oil smuggling trade, including the very interesting University of London study that found significant evidence of Turkish involvment (ISIS Export Gateway To Global Crude Oil Markets), no British connection to this trade was listed.

Even though the author had titled his article claiming a British connection, started out the article claiming a grand connection, and even including a section called "the British Connection," the author didn't include any connection. His evidence is based only on a British company that is working inside Kurdistan to help develop their own oil fields there, and that one anonymous source from a rival political party said that some Kurdish middlemen were involved in ISIS oil smuggling.

Nothing that actually involves Britain in the ISIS oil smuggling, and while he also mentions the US, he only lists a large number of ways that the US has been trying to stop the ISIS oil smuggling trade from happening.

For an author that has collected so many pieces of evidence, he is surprisingly bad at making conclusions from them. Or more likely purposefully dishonest.



His next article is even worse:
NATO is harbouring the Islamic State
Why France’s brave new war on ISIS is a sick joke, and an insult to the victims of the Paris attacks

He basically takes all of the same evidence against Turkey, some of which is included in this thread, and uses it to ridicule France and the victims of the recent attacks in Paris because they both belong to NATO.

Pretty despicable and dishonest reporting.
 
Darth Rotor said:
That would be nice, but ...
  1. Turkey has to live in that neighborhood.
  2. Turkey has to look out for Turkey.

The Turks are a major player in the local geopolitical area, and have complex relationships with all of their neighbors with whom they get along well enough to manage. The Turks aren't necessarily going to put a NATO priority over a national priority -- classic example of that was in 2002-2003, when they informed the US government that no, the 4th ID could not invade into Northern Iraq from Turkey. (That would have made the military phase shorter, though how it would have helped the "post hostility phase" that lasted until 2010 is vague at best). Some people were upset with the Turks, but I completely empathized with their situation: they have to live in that neighborhood, and the other NATO folks don't. So, Turkey had to make the best decision for Turkey, and they did.

As a mental exercise, try to see this whole mess through the eyes of a Turkish pol -- pick a party -- and figure out which of the mixed bag of parties in this mess one will support and how?

It's not as easy for them as it may look to us who are outsiders. Their long running and at times lethal disputes with various Kurdish factions isn't new.

@CE: I agree that naming and shaming of any and all in the oil smuggling chain would be a good idea. How did that work out with the smuggling ops when Saddam was evading the UNSC sanctions 1991-2003? Not so good.
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Turkey has been putting their own citizens at enormous risk, and hundreds have already been killed by helping ISIS and Al-Qaeda though.

Turkey has tried to use ISIS as a controllable monster, but it has come back to bite them in the hand. Just like the group did with Assad.

Erdogan is so focused on killing Kurds in any way possible that he has put the security of his Country second to that goal.

Eventually he may make the choice that the attacks on his country no longer make the alliance worthwhile, like Pakistan did with the Taliban, but the EU, NATO, and the UN will likely have to push him to make that choice sooner.
 
HoverBoarder said:
Turkey has been putting their own citizens at enormous risk, and hundreds have already been killed by helping ISIS and Al-Qaeda though.

Turkey has tried to use ISIS as a controllable monster, but it has come back to bite them in the hand. Just like the group did with Assad.

Erdogan is so focused on killing Kurds in any way possible that he has put the security of his Country second to that goal.

Eventually he may make the choice that the attacks on his country no longer make the alliance worthwhile, like Pakistan did with the Taliban, but the EU, NATO, and the UN will likely have to push him to make that choice sooner.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I'll need to do a bit of background reading to look at Erdogan and support for ISIS over the past 4 years. If this has been coming from the top ...
 
WildCat said:
Except there are reports of IS fighters walking in right under the noses of Turk military.
Click to expand...
Darth Rotor said:
Is that a matter of political will in Ankara, or local corruption? :confused:
Click to expand...

From the testimony of the former ISIS member, the agreement for ISIS members to travel through Turkey to attack Kurdish areas was made with full cooperation with the Turkish military.

'ISIS Sees Turkey as Its Ally': Former Islamic State Member Reveals Turkish Army Cooperation

He notes that the journey was made very often by the militants because it was much safer and secure than going through YPG territory. These trips were made with "long convoys" of trucks. Which is not something that one, or even a couple of corrupt guards would be able to cover up.

Once his fellow ISIS militants were at the border, they were assisted by the watchtower in finding a safe time to cross over, presumable to avoid YPG patrols.


Not only that, he noted that as a communication specialist, he would often connect ISIS members with Turkish military contacts.


That is not something that could be done without major cooperation with the Turkish Military Intelligence MIT.


This connection also includes border guards which have often stamped ISIS militant passports and allowed them to freely cross over for attacks on YPG Kurdish targets:


Also, the Turkish investigation into MIT arms smuggling to extremist Islamist Syrian rebels was torpedoed by Erdogan himself

Video purports to show Turkish intelligence shipping arms to Syria

Exclusive: Turkish intelligence helped ship arms to Syrian Islamist rebel areas
 
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