Business with ISIS – Updated

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Many on the Arab street believe even now that ISIL/ISIS/IS was aided by the Americans.

Saddam Hussein’s government had been in full compliance with UNSCOM inspectors when Bush and Blair accomplished the unlawful invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The state was left struggling for survival. Salafist groups that Saddam Hussein had kept in check, and Shi’a militants loyal to Iran swiftly filled the security vacuum which the Americans and British created. Hard on the heels of the returning Shi’a exiles bent on revenge against the Sunnis and former elite, al-Qaeda in Iraq extended its network of operations, definitively breaking with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2006 (ISIL, as it was known at the time) saw its opportunity. Many on the Arab street believe even now that ISIL/ISIS/IS was aided by the Americans. There is some evidence for this, which I will come to shortly.

A startling falsehood put out by pro-war hawks, including Kyle Orton and Liz Sly, was that the Ba’ath regime somehow provided the foundations for AQI and ISIS. In fact, the reverse is true. Saddam Hussein intensely opposed Wahhabism, Salafist trends and the Shi’a religious extremists. He kept state and religion separate and reviled and repudiated Osama Bin Laden. Orton and others did not examine the Ba’ath archives held in the Memory Foundation in the United States to conclude that their theory held no water. It was propaganda on top of the old lies circulated to vindicate the invasion by claiming AQI/ISIS was already present. Conversely, Saddam Hussein had kept Al Qaeda under close watch, arresting suspects and closing fundamentalist mosques. When the US and UK cynically removed him from power and destroyed the Ba’ath order, the floodgates for the sectarian carnage that followed were opened. More than one million Iraqis were swiftly killed, and the errors would lead within a decade to the destruction of Mosul and the ancient sites of Nineveh and Hatra along with countless irreplaceable Iraqi antiquities and artefacts – not to mention the cost to further tens of thousands of human lives.

A number of very angry Ba’athists had joined AQI, and later, ISIS, in reaction to the destruction of their administration whilst others joined the anti-occupation resistance or simply fled to Jordan, the Emirates, Qatar and the West.

Joining the Salafists was sheer opportunism – there had been no ideological links such as Orton and neo-con think tanks have since sought to claim. In a more plausible article published during the height of ISIS control in Iraq and Syria at the beginning of 2016, Ben Norton emphasised, “It was U.S. regime change and a decade of brutal war that led to the rise of ISIS, not Saddam – it’s official.” He followed this by placing reliance on the archived Ba’ath Party documents digitized by the Hoover Foundation and careful historical scholarship saying:

” With their old excuses falling apart, therefore, defenders of the Iraq War have resorted to creating the most ludicrous myth yet: The idea that Saddam Hussein somehow birthed ISIS. This argument generated controversy in late December, when Kyle Orton, a fellow at the hawkish, neoconservative British think tank the Henry Jackson Society (which is named after the fervently anti-Communist former U.S. senator), penned an Op-Ed in the New York Times titled “How Saddam Hussein Gave Us ISIS.” In the piece, peddling suspect historical analysis, Orton claimed Hussein’s government morphed from the secular Arab nationalist ideology of Baathism into Sunni fundamentalism known as Salafism. He argued Hussein pursued a campaign of political Islamization in his country, “imposed a version of Shariah law” and “allied with Islamists, notably the Muslim Brotherhood.” He also insisted that ISIS created “a Saddam Hussein-style authoritarian regime.”

Liz Sly, the Beirut bureau chief of the Washington Post — which uncritically echoed lies from the Bush administration in the buildup to the Iraq War — published an article advancing a similar argument in April…

The “Saddam created ISIS” thesis is popular among those who portrayed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as a benevolent act of humanitarian intervention, not an illegal war based upon lies and an act of aggression against a country that had absolutely nothing to do with al-Qaida or the Sept. 11 attacks.

Some scholars are not buying it, and have pushed back against the argument, which they say simply is not in accord with the facts. Samuel Helfont, a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and Michael Brill, a graduate student at Georgetown University, published a thorough refutation of this thesis in Foreign Affairs on Jan. 12.The notion that Hussein set the foundations for ISIS is “inaccurate and dangerously misleading,” the scholars concluded, after sifting through the documents. “Our rigorous study of those records has found no evidence that Saddam or his Baathist regime in Iraq displayed any sympathy for Islamism, Salafism, or Wahhabism,” the scholars revealed. They say the documents make it “clear”: Saddam Hussein opposed Islamic extremism…” [1]

In 2002, Saddam Hussein was busy writing metaphorical novels. There was not a trace of religious advocacy in them.

The Shi’a “Axis of Resistance”

Bashar al-Assad was not incorrect soon after the ‘Arab spring’ took hold of Syria in April 2011 in claiming that ‘foreigners’ were aiming to take over the country. Looking at the footage emerging at that time it was evident that those fighters with long beards crying “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great!) as they launched their attacks were not Syrian democrats; they were the same branch of Sunni extremists that had undermined swathes of Iraq as well the northern Lebanese Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared in 2006 and Ein el-Hilweh in Sidon (Saida) in the south of Lebanon. Such inroads by the Sunni extremists had led to the Lebanese army besieging Nahr el-Bared to uproot them in 2007. Meanwhile, the Salafist momentum continued to make gains in Iraq, Syria, the Yemen, and across Africa and Asia.

Beheadings inspire terror and make headlines. Beheadings were an effective psychological tactic deployed against Westerners and recalcitrants, in particular, but were also carried out against Iraqi locals including haulage lorries and taxis after the uprising got underway in Iraq following the overthrow of the Ba’ath Party. Between 2004-2006 in Iraq, captives were often filmed and footage of their beheadings shown soon after death threats had been made. These video sequences were then disseminated in the media along with warnings of further such actions. On 18 September 2004, al-Tawhid and al-Jihad (“Oneness of God and Jihad”) then headed by the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, released a video of three men kneeling in front of an al-Tawhid and al-Jihad banner. The kidnappers said they would kill the men within 48 hours if their demands for the release of female Iraqi prisoners held by coalition forces were not met. Eugene Armstrong was killed on 20 September when the deadline expired [2], Jack Hensley 24 hours later [3], and Kenneth Bigley some two weeks later, despite the attempted intervention of the Muslim Council of Britain and the indirect intervention of the British government. Videos of the killings were then posted on websites and blogs. [4] The tactic then perpetuated by Al Qaeda and regularly exploited thereafter by ISIL had the same effect.

The Turkish hand

ISIL had captured several Turkish diplomats and citizens when they successfully stormed the Turkish Consulate while taking Mosul on June 11, 2014. Although, to the public eye, the Turkish hostages were seemingly threatened with death, like other ISIS captives, on September 20, 2014, Erdoğan secured their release unharmed. [5] A trade off had taken place. Turkish intelligence (MİT) agents managed to escort 49 captives out of Syria back to Turkey. [6] In return, Turkey released some 180 ISIS fighters close to the Kurdish town Kobani in NW Syria where it was militarily active, transporting the militants in military trucks just as it transports its own soldiers.

Of similar note, some 32 Turkish lorry drivers seized in Mosul some days before the diplomats were also freed unharmed with no details being disclosed. [7] Turkish PM of the day, Ahmet Davutoglu claimed their release to be the result of the MIT’s “own methods”, and not a “point operation” involving special forces. He would provide no further details.”8 MIT had direct operational links with JITEM (Gendarme Intelligence) and the state-run Turkish Hezbollah killers in the past.

Turkey was accused by many well-informed analysts of providing active support to Jabhat al-Nusra (the Nusra Front) and ISIS, arming militants from both groups and allowing them freedom of operation and of movement. Ahmed Kurdi, the leader of the Kurdish Front Brigade in NW Syria stressed that they had definite proof as well as documentation of Turkey’s support to the terror units. He added that some of the Kurdish Front’s fighters and ordinary supporters who had been captured by ISIS had been interrogated by Turkish officers, noting, “all our people said that Turkish officers had taken part in interrogation. This proves (Turkey’s) support is continuing. They pretend to be in conflict with this organisation, but this is not true.”

An important article published in Turkey’s semi-opposition Aydınlık newspaper: MİT’ten IŞİD’e Paralı Asker (From MIT to ISIS: Paid soldiers) observed: “One group of retired Turkish soldiers from the Special Forces Command are reportedly fighting together with militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) in Iraq, a fact that shockingly even PM Erdoğan knows. The soldiers are believed to be joining ISIS in exchange for high wages. Some of the anonymous colleagues of the soldiers have identified them from images taken during combat. The investigations have discovered that the Turkish Intelligence Organization (MİT by its Turkish acronym) sent the retired soldiers to Iraq to support terrorism in the region. MİT controls the operation. They did the same in Syria…They also took part in the attack by the opposition forces in Kasap. Most of those with masks are from this group. They keep their masks on even in hot weather to avoid being recognized. They are now side by side with ISIS in Mosul. They act like legionnaires. It has become evident when some took their masks off…

As can be imagined, incidents of the Turkish flag being lowered in Diyarbakır and Turkish diplomats kidnapped in Mosul were all in accordance with the plans of MİT.” [9]

Some 10% of ISIS fighters were considered to be recruits from Turkey according to opposition CHP Konya deputy, Atilla Kart, in Today’s Zaman magazine of the time. The article was headed CHP’s Kart reveals high level of participation in ISIL from Turkey. [10]

Some of ISIS’s later funding also derived from the sale of oil taken from Mosul in Iraq and from northern Syria which was then secretly transported to be refined on the Turkish border and converted into cash in Turkey. It was estimated at the time to be worth some $800 million. [11]

“We left troops behind only for the oil.”

After ISIS was routed from NE Syria, American tankers began hauling Syrian oil out of the country for its own benefit. As many as 66,000 barrels a day were being stolen this year as numerous reports published between August and September 2022 testified. [12] Economists claimed the oil and gas supplies were being routed via Hasakah with the aid of Syrian Kurdish-led, Syrian Democratic Forces across the border into US bases in Iraq. On August 8, the Syrian Oil Ministry had said in a statement that the “US and its mercenaries are stealing an average of 66,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) in Syria, nearly 80 per cent of Syria’s oil production of 88,000 bopd. The prolonged crisis has cost Syria’s oil industry direct and indirect losses of $105 billion. [13] They are also accused of looting Syrian tankers and crossing into Iraq via the unauthorised Mahmudiya crossing. Once in Iraqi territory the tankers are then siphoned, according to SANA. The US now controls key oil and gas fields taken back from ISIS and “When former President Donald Trump said U.S. troops would remain in Syria to “keep the oil” at the end of 2019 he stood beside Erdoğan and said “ We are keeping the oil. We have the oil. The oil is secure. We left troops behind only for the oil. [14] The Pentagon raced to deny it: American forces only stayed in Syria to comprehensively defeat ISIS, a spokesman explained; any military presence around the oil fields was purely part of the mission to overcome the so-called Islamic State… The U.S. had come up with a simple if morally and legally dubious plan: help America’s Kurdish partners profit from local oil by keeping it out of the hands of the Assad regime or Islamist militias, and then helping to refine and sell it. These oil fields in the northeast were once part of the network from which ISIS drew a reported $1.5 million in daily revenue. [15]

Hiding in plain sight

Turkey’s President Erdoğan and the Turkish Intelligence Service (MIT) had been assisting ISIS through providing training, arms, and recycling fighters in Turkish uniform in and out of Turkey to both Syria and Iraq. Erdoğan also lied to the public about (finally) arresting al-Baghdadi’s relatives after the demise of the chief in Barisha, just three miles from the ‘open’ border with Turkey. After being wounded in Raqqa, al-Baghdadi had been treated in Turkey for three months, courtesy of the Turkish President, securely transported in Turkish and ISIS tanks.

Al Baghdadi’s no. 1 wife, Asma Fawzi Muhammad al-Qubaysi, his sister, and other relatives had also all been all living under the eyes of the Turkish security services in Reyhanli, Hatay province bordering NW Syria. Reyhanli itself is just 26 miles from Antakya. Their ‘arrest’ was little other than another opportunistic sham staged by Erdoğan for public consumption. After US and Kurdish forces captured al-Baghdadi without Turkish assistance in a Turkish protected enclave [16] along with two of al-Baghdadi’s brother’s wives Erdoğan needed real cover.

They had all reached Idlib from Raqqa, travelling unhindered through Turkey. The same middle man also conveyed al-Baghdadi’s children out of Iraq by the same route – a route that Iraqi intelligence briefed the CIA about – not Erdoğan. [17] Erdoğan claimed later to have detained the wife back in June along with al-Baghdadi’s elder sister, a brother in law, daughter in law and five children in Azaz, saying he hadn’t made a fuss about it! [18] In fact, they were given the Turkish president’s protection and freedom.

Other of al-Baghdadi’s relatives and ISIS nobles were also being looked after by the Turkish President’s men in Reyhanli, Antakya, Adana, Konya and Gaziantep. Contemporary with ISIS seizing control of vast swathes of Syria and Iraq in mid 2014, Al Monitor published the following exposure:

“All these groups like the Islamic State (IS), Jabhat al-Nusra and what not, come and go through here,” a Reyhanli resident told Al-Monitor, asking to remain anonymous. “Take Mustafa Demir. He is from here. But IS has given him an emir position in Raqqa… The local security directorate can be found on this street. “Do you see this barber shop?” The barber shop is about 300 meters (984 feet) away from the security directorate. “That barber’s name is Omer Demir. He is the IS recruitment officer here. If you are going to join them by going through Turkey, here is the first contact you make with IS… A top security official from the Adana counterterrorism department came here with his crew. They talked to the people and brought the situation under control. But then we learned that there are seven sleeper cells here, and that they are all closely monitoring them, as well as Omer’s activities…” [19]

This was five years before the death of al-Baghdadi, along with two wives and three of their children, all killed in the explosion when the slayer detonated his suicide vest…“Monitoring al-Baghdadi? Well, no, rathermore, liaising and cooperating. Erdoğan and MIT knew full well that al-Baghdadi was in Idlib because this was their area. They were in regular contact with the ISIS figurehead and his people who frequently came across into Turkey after being compelled to leave Raqqa. The day after al-Baghdadi’s demise, IS spokesman, Abu al-Hassan Al-Muhajir was killed in Ain al-Baydah near Jarablus, which had also been under Turkish military control since Operation Euphrates Shield was launched by Erdoğan in 2016. The New Arab reported how even late into October 2015, Erdoğan was still boasting “that Turkey would expand its Euphrates Shield operation in northwest Syria to Kirkuk, Mosul, Tal Afar and Sinjar.” [20]

Wounded Islamist extremist fighters were systematically allowed into Turkey and were treated free of charge in Reyhanli while student housing blocks became bases for the training of fresh fighters. The wounded jihadists were first treated in public hospitals or field clinics on the border, and the more senior among them received care in private hospitals, including former Al-Qaeda affiliate Ahrar al-Sham members. [21]

Erdoğan ’s government had groomed, trained and armed a plethora of Sunni jihadist extremists in the name of the ‘Free Syrian Army’ from the outset of the insurrection inside Syria. He hosted their meetings in Istanbul and allowed them operating bases in Gaziantep and along the Turkish border with Syria, subsequently recycling Ahrar al-Sham, al-Nusra, ISIS, Liwa al-Shamal, and other extremists through the Turkish army and special units, back into Syria and Iraq. MIT directly armed these groups as well as engaging in the transport and sale of ISIS oil.

NW Syria – A “Safe” Zone only for Jihadist terrorists

1. The area controlled by Turkey was never intended to be a “safe zone” for anyone but the Turkish-sponsored Islamist extremists that were given a free hand to behead, rape and slaughter their foes to the accompaniment of barbarous yells of ‘Alluhu Akbar’, just as the footage taken in the first days of the FSA extremists clearly showed. The consequences were to be dire for the local people. [22]

2. Since Idlib literally became a ‘Safe Zone’ for Islamist terrorists under Turkey’s protection after the AKP’s successful experiment with the invasion of Afrin, Erdoğan was confident that NATO and his Western partners would permit him to continue with little more than mere mutters of complaint – as was seen during the Trump administration when Donald Trump withdrew American troop protection from their Kurdish allies leaving them exposed to the Turks and the jihadists. No adequate redress has been presented by the Turkish government to even begin to compensate the hundreds of civilians whose livelihoods and properties were destroyed or occupied by jihadist groups.

3. Erdoğan made it clear from the outset that his prime interest was not in pursuing ISIS but rather more his Kurdish foe – a foe that consistently offered peaceful negotiations to settle the Kurdish problem in Turkey, but Erdoğan is not a man of peace.

4. The Turkish border was left porous for some 40,000 foreign fighters to freely boost the number of ISIS and al-Nusra hardliners such that they were able to cross back and forth freely.

5. These same extremists carried out the worst massacres, rapes, beheadings and other barbaric punishments seen this century, including the barbarous slaughter on 12 June 2014 of some 1700 Shi’a conscripts from Camp Speicher in Tikrit, Iraq – executed with shots to the head, one after the other, before pushing their bodies off a landing into the Tigris river and hastily burying others in mass graves.23 Erdoğan never expressed criticism of the beheadings and sectarian murders. Former AKP PM, Ahmet Davutoğlu, had even said of ISIS they were just angry young Muslim kids. He avoided calling them terrorists. [24]

6. Prior to declaring a ‘caliphate’ in Mosul on 29 June 2014, al-Baghdadi was reported to have been in Ankara.25 In September 2014, ISIS conveyed Turkish Embassy staff from Mosul safely to the Turkish border from Mosul.26 The West used the ‘plight’ of the diplomats as an excuse not to censure Turkey’s lack of participation in the fight against ISIS.

7. When in post as US vice president, Joe Biden warned Turkey not to keep helping the fundamentalists in 2014 and detailed how Turkey was helping ISIS and other groups saying: “Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria,”  explaining that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were “so determined to take down Assad,” that in a sense they started a “proxy Sunni-Shia war” by pouring “hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons” towards anyone who would fight against Assad. [27]

8. Among other details collated in an extensive research paper by David L. Phillips, ISIS-Turkey Links: “CNN Turk reported on July 29, 2014, that in the heart of Istanbul, places like Duzce and Adapazari, have become gathering spots for terrorists. There are religious orders where ISIS militants are trained. Some of these training videos are posted on the Turkish ISIS propaganda website takvahaber.net. According to CNN Turk, Turkish security forces could have stopped these developments if they had wanted to. [28]

9. A senior Egyptian official indicated on October 9, 2014 that Turkish intelligence is passing satellite imagery and other data to ISIS…Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu warned the AKP government not to provide money and training to terror groups on October 14, 2014. He said, “It isn’t right for armed groups to be trained on Turkish soil. You bring foreign fighters to Turkey, put money in their pockets, guns in their hands, and you ask them to kill Muslims in Syria. We told them to stop helping ISIS. Ahmet Davutoğlu asked us to show proof. Everyone knows that they’re helping ISIS.” According to Jordanian intelligence, Turkey trained ISIS militants for special operations… [29] On his visit to Turkey in 2015 Joe Biden held a press conference and was rebuffed by Erdoğan for his criticism, so spoke only with the opposition.

   

10. When al-Baghdadi made his first recorded announcement after five years at the end of April 2019 from an unknown location, the mainstream Western media claimed it to be some ‘remote corner’ of Iraq or Syria when it was in fact Turkish-controlled Idlib, and anyone familiar with the area could see from the furnishings behind the bearded speaker where this was most likely to be. Al Baghdadi is also shown being handed a file marked Wilayet Turkiye (hence detailing his plans for the Islamic State in Turkey). [30] Even a man in prison, Kurdish political prisoner, Huseyin Baybasin, held hostage in a deal between the Turks and the Dutch, could see this location was Idlib and wrote saying so in May 2019. [31]

11. Turkish Intelligence agents, including Ahmet Yayla, who left the security organisation in dismay, denounced MIT’s involvement with ISIS. [32] Sources still working inside the organisation that do not wish to be named and who shared Yayla’s moral outrage also confirmed that al-Baghdadi and his relatives were taken good care of by Erdoğan and that the later ‘arrests’ are no sudden chance discovery of their identities.

12. Abu Mansour al-Maghrebi was named as the ‘Ambassador’ between ISIS’s intelligence (EMNI) and Turkish Intelligence (MIT), initially based at the border to facilitate the flow of foreign fighters and co-operate at the ‘gates’ with Turkey as well as reaching agreements with MIT for the injured fighters to receive treatment: “I passed the borders and they let me pass. [At the border] the Turks always sent me a car and I’m protected. A team of two to three people from our side were with me. I was in charge of our team most of the time… there was not even any passport control at the gates and the public hospitals were treating the wounded fighters free of charge. “When the person gets injured, there is a hospital in Syria, and this hospital sends him in a car to the border. There were ambulances on the Turkish side waiting for this person. There were doctors who disliked Bashar. They treated our guys. The MIT …was made aware of every critical situation and they sent the ambulances to the border. There were also hospitals close to the border. Those who received critical care were treated there and they [the MIT] sent the others all over Turkey depending on their needs. There were very interested doctors, Syrian and Turkish, who wanted to help. So, if there were not facilities to serve them on the border, they would be sent further into Turkey for this…” [33] Al Baghdadi was one of the wounded ISIS personnel to have been able to receive such medical care in Turkey. According to Turkish security source leaks, once restored to health al-Baghdadi was filtered back into Syria and retained his dialogue with MIT.

13. The AKP government continued to facilitate ISIS recruitment and training. The Phillips report noted: “Kerim Kiliçdaroğlu claimed on October 14, 2014 that ISIS offices in Istanbul and Gaziantep are used to recruit fighters. On October 10, 2014, the mufti of Konya said that 100 people from Konya joined ISIS 4 days ago at that date. OdaTV reports that Takva Haber serves as a propaganda outlet for ISIS to recruit Turkish-speaking individuals in Turkey and Germany. The address where this propaganda website is registered corresponds to the address of a school called Irfan Koleji, which was established by Ilim Yayma Vakfi, a foundation that was created by Erdogan and Davutoğlu, among others. It is thus claimed that the propaganda site is operated from the school of the foundation started by AKP members…” [34]

14. 

    Erdoğan had created the Free Syrian Army but the US could later find no better ally than the Kurds in Syria once ISIS got out of hand. As the YPG were already fighting to save the Yazidis in Sinjar, northern Iraq when Turkey was arming ISIS in Kobani, the US saw them as the major player in the Syrian Democratic Forces and as viable strategic partners, despite certain elements being pro-Marxist. A CHP delegation to Kobani was told on 24 September 2014 that everything ’from the clothes ISIS wears to their guns comes from Turkey and Turkish officials were among them. Fleeing villagers were obstructed from being helped by their fellow Kurds on the Turkish side of the border in Suruç and Urfa, whereas the ISIS militants were being allowed to flow freely back and forth by the AKP government. [35]

15. The war against ISIS served as further justification for US forces to remain in both Syria and Iraq and became a major distraction for the American public at home. Throughout the period from June 2014 to November 2017 when Mosul was eventually retaken, despite weak American criticism of Turkey, Erdoğan continued his support for the jihadists, undermining NATO from within and working with Russia’s Putin against Western interests. [36] disputed territories the six boesonment in Turkeyicient to undertake the successful drone strike that killed him in. e to collap In 2016, I correctly forecast that Washington would very likely abandon the Kurds once the job against ISIS was considered sufficiently accomplished in Syria. [37] This is because Trump had no intention of staying to support the Kurds of the PYD/YPG in NW Syria once ISIS had been brought to heel, despite the proliferation of equally dangerous groups still operating there courtesy of Turkey. The Pentagon sought to secure the Syrian oil fields just as the US and Britain had done when staking claims to Iraq’s oil through the illegal invasion of March 2003 following years of secret preparation. The various other jihadist groups sponsored by Turkey, including Sultan Murad, were no better than ISIS and embraced the same extremist Islamist ideology, even threatening to kill Kurdish children. [38] Women were soon being forced to wear the niqab; beheadings began to take place, as well as torture and random killings. Horrific images were soon being circulated on social media.

16. 

    Turkey and Qatar have long been working together inside post-Qaddafi Libya [39] as well as in several African countries, [40] organising recycled ISIS fighters and supporting them with all means necessary. Qatar has provided funding while Turkey has taken care of training, arms and transportation. [41] The UAE and Saudi have acted in the same manner. [42]

17. Former Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu [43] announced in June 2019 that he would be forming a new party with Abdullah Gül and Ali Babacan by the autumn of 2019, stating they were worried over the wrongful path the AKP was taking. [44] Davutoğlu himself admitted that they had been wrong in allowing ISIS militants to freely cross from Turkey and did not permit proper investigation despite knowing the group’s terror actions.

18. Erdoğan meanwhile announced his plans for reshaping Kurdish Rojava, deploying Arab and foreign recycled Al Qaeda and ISIS jihadists under the guise of returning “refugees” to an area with which they had no former connection. According to the plan, before “relocating” between 1 to 2 million Syrian refugees to the Kurdish lands, Turkey would invest an estimated $26 billion (151 billion Turkish lira) for construction and infrastructure. “Turkish capitalists are waiting for this (presumably state-assisted) opportunity with sparkling eyes, which is one of the reasons why all their chambers and associations immediately declared full support for Turkey’s “heroic armies”. [45] This was nothing other than ethnic cleansing of Kurdish majority areas. Chemical weapons were used, including white phosphorous. [46]

19. US and British politicians (including Boris Johnson and Lord Janvrin, the Tory trade envoy to Turkey), rewarded Erdoğan’s terror tactics in the name of commerce. [47]

20. The duplicitous strategy of the United States has had terrible consequences for indigenojus Syrian Kurds, Christians and minorities that were relatively safe in NW Syria before the Turkish invasions. Seth Franzman emphasised that:

“A review of the timeline of official US statements, including Trump’s tweets and Department of Defense statements, reveals that the US State Department played a key and leading role in working with Turkey on the safe zone concept. It is also clear that much of the details about where Turkey would invade and take over was already presented in July or August. In fact, maps had been circulating by that time. Turkey took its concept to the UN in September. The US knew that Turkish artillery and tanks were deployed and that Syrian rebel groups, many of them extremists who openly took videos saying they would ethnically cleanse, behead and murder local people, were on the way to the invasion… It only took Turkey three days after Trump’s decision to begin bombing… The US… referenced the “long-planned” operation. Turkey had been provided with joint patrols and flights over the area it intended to take over in August and September. The US had urged the SSDF to withdraw and also to remove any defensive positions. The US had thus paved the way to make the invasion as easy as possible, while paying lip service to opposing it…The US didn’t warn or provide any humanitarian aid for those like Hevrin Khalaf, who were murdered. Children bombed in Qamishli received no US diplomatic support, in fact the US has never even acknowledged them or any of the estimated 300,000 people displaced…[48]

21. 

    Erdoğan imprisoned some 120,000 intellectuals and critics of his policies soon after the ‘coup’ of July 2016, including writers, journalists, judges and alleged Gülen members yet Turkey was only formally detaining 1,149 ISIS prisoners – of which Erdoğan claimed some ‘several hundred’ to be Westerners. The very low number spoke volumes. [49] This was because Turkey was clothing ISIS fighters in the uniforms of the Turkish army and Free Syrian Army, (now the Syrian National (aka jihadist) Army) and recycling them back into Syria. Erdoğan’s repatriation plans were intended to remove those Western ISIS fighters that he could not recycle as easily, threatening that ‘Turkey will extradite them no matter what.’ disputed territories the six boesonment in Turkeyicient to undertake the successful drone strike that killed him in. e to collap.

In Iraq, a high proportion of ISIS detainees, including ISIS wives, are Turkish nationals. The many thousands of others include Uyghurs [50], Tajiks, Kazaks, Uzbeks, Russians, Kosovars [51], Tunisians, Egyptians and fighters that were directly fielded by Turkey into Iraq and Syria. [52] Had Turkey secured the border with Syria and Iraq as it ought to have done as a NATO member and by any civilised standards, ISIS could not have seized control of huge parts of those countries resulting in such terrible destruction and the enormous loss of life.

In Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces had been holding some 70, 000 ISIS suspects in various camps overall, including at least 10,000 fighters. [53] The Kurdish forces ended up holding between 13,000 – 11,000 of them after the fall of Baghouzand gathering them in Al Hol camp close to the border between Syria and Iraq. [54] Erdoğan, meanwhile let several hundred of these captured jihasists slip out from detention through his bloody invasion and then praised his forces for capturing some of their women and children. The White House had aimed to give Turkey full responsibility for ISIS prisoners! The fox in charge of the chicken coup.

Joshua A. Geltzer, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council during the Obama administration observed, “It’s hard to imagine Turkey has the capacity to handle securely and appropriately the detainees long held by the Syrian Kurds — and that’s if Turkey even genuinely intends to try.” [55]

Trump had just begun to take over the transfer of some so-called high-level ISIS prisoners from the Kurds but once he had signaled to Erdoğan that Turkey could establish its “safe” zone, the Kurds rightly ceased to trust him. Erdoğan parroted his usual refrain of “security concerns” over the PKK but no one was attacking Turkey. [56] Indeed, as US President, Donald Trump held a news conference with Erdoğan on the very day the House’s public impeachment proceedings commenced. [57] His priorities lay there and not concerning the Syrian problem with Turkey – least of all ISIS. [58]

In 2017, Erdoğan had stood before a crowd on the Bosphorus bridge where a year earlier, tanks had rushed against the crowd in the dubious ‘coup’ to remove him crying aloud: “Önce bu hainlerin kafasını kopartacağız” (First of all we’ll sever the traitors’ heads!” He also pledged to restore the death penalty, his greater powers as potentate having been secured.

Erdoğan denies fault but punishes the messengers

As an INSURGE intelligence report set forth:

“There is significant evidence that high-level elements of Turkish government and intelligence agencies have covertly sponsored Islamist terrorist groups in Syria, including ISIS, and that this has involved permitting black market oil sales. Why, however, did Vladimir Putin wait until the murder of a Russian pilot before announcing Russia’s possession of intelligence on Turkish state-sponsorship of ISIS? There can be little doubt that Putin had previously been more interested in protecting Russian relations with Turkey as an emerging gas transshipment hub to Europe, under which he and Erdoğan planned to build the multibillion Russia-Turkey gas pipeline, Turkish Stream — now suspended after the recent diplomatic furor…” [59]

Turkey appears to have become more highly involved with Ahrar al-Sham than ISIS in Syria thereafter – the former group was competing with ISIS at the time the weapons shipments were exposed. [60] Ahrar al Sham was in control of the area directly across the border from Turkey’s Hatay region but like Jabhat al Nusra was not less brutal than ISIS. MIT truck deliveries also went via Adana. Ahrar al-Sham’s commanders included the late Abu Khaled al-Soury, (AKA Abu Omair al-Shamy), killed by a suicide attack in Aleppo in February 2014 [61] a former cohort of Osama bin Laden and ally of Al Qaeda successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Erdoğan quietly appears to have backed them all at the same time.

The MIT trucks that had been secretly transporting weapons supplies to jihadists in Syria were first intercepted in November 2013 and again a further three times in January 2014. The radical Wahhabist groups were competing for resources and regional control in Syria and continued to do so. Reuters had claimed that it accessed “testimony from gendarmerie officers in court documents (reviewed by them, which) allege that rocket parts, ammunition and semi-finished mortar shells were carried in trucks accompanied by state intelligence agency (MIT) officials more than a year ago to parts of Syria under Islamist control. One of the truck drivers, Murat Kislakci, was quoted as saying the cargo he carried on Jan. 19 was loaded from a foreign plane at Ankara airport and that he had carried similar shipments before. Reuters was unable to contact Kislakci. Russia provided corroborative evidence.

Turkish human rights lawyer, Sezgin Tanrikulu, claimed the weapons were for ISIS in Syria and threatened to take Erdoğan to the Criminal court (in Turkish) for state crimes. [62]

Enis Berberoğlu, a member of the secular opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was threatened with arrest and imprisonment in Turkey in June 2017 of up to 25 years for exposing “state secrets”. He was accused of having revealed footage from January 2014 of the MIT trucks clandestinely carrying arms to Jihadists, but the story had already been published in Aydinlik. Other reporters, including Can Dundar were also unfairly imprisoned over the affair. [63] Dundar said:

“Erdoğan was in a fix. He couldn’t refute the story, so instead chose to censor the publication and threaten the journalist responsible, who was me. In a live broadcast on a state TV channel, he said: “The person who wrote this story will pay a heavy price for it; I won’t let him go unpunished.” He added that the footage was a “state secret”, and that publishing it was an act of “espionage”. Furthermore, as if to confirm that this was not the state’s secret but his secret, he filed a personal complaint to the prosecutor’s office…The punishment he demanded for me was two life sentences – for “treason” and for “acquiring and publishing classified information for the purpose of espionage”. This signalled the arrest of those of us who were well aware that the president of the republic’s wishes are received as orders by the judges of the criminal court…” [64]

Further evidence of Turkey’s illegal oil dealings

Tehran had been criticising Turkey’s illegal oil smuggling even before Moscow began to. Erdoğan retorted publicly how he had demanded that President Rouhani cease the negative media reporting and also stop “supporting Russian revelations about his family’s involvement in the illegal oil trade…” But Mohsen Rezaie, secretary of the Iranian Expediency Discernment Council stated that “Iranian military advisors in Syria have taken photos and filmed all the routes used by ISIL’s oil tankers to Turkey; these documents can be published.” [65]

For their part, the UK Foreign Affairs Committee hearings (and published reports) did not reveal that they also knew ISIS was smuggling oil with the help of Presidents Erdoğan and indeed, KDP leader Massoud Barzani – perhaps because some of its authors were among those deriving profit. [66]

The Iran Cables leaks also claimed: MOIS intelligence sources claimed that certain ISIS amirs with a Ba’ath background established relations with the Kurdish Democratic Party so as to flee to the KRI rather than falling into the hands of the Shia Iraqi forces. The report cited a meeting of the Central Council of the Caliphate presided over at the time by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The report also claimed that ISIS commanders in two districts north of Mosul had made contact with American and Kurdish forces, given them GPS coordinates of ISIS positions, and revealed the group’s attack plans. In response, ISIS cut telephone and internet connections in those areas and sought to limit the communications of other commanders on the front-line including in Zummar, and Rabia on the Syrian border where the coalition air activity in support of a Peshmerga offensive had been two pronged during this same period. [67]

In July 2017, a confidential insider had explained to this author how:

“The mixing and oil truck transport nexus was run by the Turks just outside Hunt Oil’s Ain Sifni block, not far from Bashiqa. IS trucks were being driven in and then the oil was mixed and came out via Erdoğan’s lorry fleet. Photographs were circulated of the mixing and topping plant opposite the Maglub well in the Ain Sifni block. This operation constituted a well organised collaboration between the KDP, the IOCs involved and Turkey. Erdogan and Barzani were sending this oil up to Turkey with Range Oil, active on the border with Iran while IS was transporting it to the Nineveh governorate borders. Oil was also coming in from Syria and was being mixed with Hunt Oil. With ISIS oil, it was easy to mix the oil with other oil at places like Turkey’s Ceyhan Dörtyol – there are several routes by which it was transported out. [68]

In May 2022 the Turkish military base in Bashiqa was bombed as many as ten times

Erdoğan had stationed troops close to the border with Iran near where Range Oil was becoming active, just as he had done in Bashiqa, also close to the oil wells. Landing strips were built in partnership with KDP President, Massoud Barzani, and the Nujaif brothers – Barzani’s fellow Sunni allies whose own personal militia, Hash’d al Watani, were Turkish trained. [69] [70] [71] The Turkish troops had arrived in Bashiqa in 2014, such arrival coinciding with that of ISIS. Before long, ISIS was getting oil in the areas it had seized out via Turkey. Moscow elaborated in detail upon the routes in operation at the time also making its satellite imagery public. [72] Bashiqa is being constantly attacked by pro-Iran militia forces intent on driving the Turks from Iraqi soil. In May 2022 the Turkish military base in Bashiqa was bombed as many as ten times. [73] The drone attacks came soon after Turkisj strikes against PKK positions inside northern Iraq including the Makhmur refugee camp outside the Green Line of the KRG’s foreign recognized territory. Turkey was also operating cross border bombing attacks on Sinjar (Shengal) ostensibly against the PKK but also striking Shi’a militias of the Hashd forces there.

Çalık Enerji, operates under Çalık Holding and is one of the largest of Turkey’s corporations. The Oil Price source, Shadow Governance Intelligence, revealed the following details in a feature published on Turkish influence in the KRG oil sector. Its former CEO is Berat Albayrak, Erdoğan’s son-in-law who went on to apply to the Petroleum Directorate of Turkey for a license to build a crude oil pipeline from the KRG-Turkish border to Ceyhan in early 2012. The pipeline from Khurmala to Faysh Khabur, was subsequently completed at the end of 2013. PowerTrans was granted the rights to transport the oil by lorry, having been founded just four months prior to the resolution. PowerTrans’s rights were extended to 31 December 2020 (under Resolution 2015/7583), finalised just one week before the June 2015 Turkish elections. Its access to the energy collaboration strongly suggested that it enjoyed “privileged access to the industry before it became a high-profile sector.”

Turkish Energy Company (TEC)

In May 2012, Turkey had sealed an energy agreement with ExxonMobil to cooperate on ExxonMobil’s six blocks in the KRG region that was signed at the Steam Energy Conference with Nechirvan Barzani, Rex Tillerson and Taner Yildiz. Trafigura and Vitol had been working with XOM, Turkey and the KRG in October 2012 moving 90,000 bpd by truck. Exxom had been backing out in April 2012 as the six blocks they had signed up to in September 2011 had TEC in place in two of them and fell in the disputed territories in Nineveh governorate (strictly outside the KRG). They therefore had to pay the Nujaifi brothers in whose territory it lay. Erdoğan said this deal made it suitable for an (unnamed) “Turkish company” to embark upon a partnership with Exxon and KRG. [74] He had withheld the name of the “Turkish company” given stakes in the Choman (80 percent), Hindren (80 percent), Arbat (80 percent), Pulkhana (40 percent), Jabal Kand (40 percent), and Khalakan Blocks” (40 percent with Jamal Daniels Range Energy Resources being one of the other partners in Khalakan. It was subsequently disclosed that the company concerned was TEC – the Turkish Energy Company (initially registered as Salus Energy in the Channel Islands, 12 October 2012).

Berat Albayrak reportedly “played a key role in the Ankara-Erbil energy relations, benefiting both economically and politically. His ministerial role further upgraded his presence in the KRG energy sector such that his network presented benefits to “Kurdish families with strong ties to the KDP, such as Mushin Nezir, active in the Turkish energy company, PetroTrans…” [75] Despite having no background or experience in politics, Albayrak led the Turkish Energy Ministry since November 2015.” [76] He presents himself as a staunch Sunni Muslim, just like his father-in-law, but their hands are overflowing with golden apples. Clearly these riches have all fallen from Allah’s tree – a tree that was not originally growing in Albayrak’s garden as the son of a Conservative writer close to Erdoğan, Sadik Albayrak, or indeed Erdoğan himself, the son of a Black Sea coastguard that migrated with his family to Istanbul where his son Recep used to sell simit on the streets for a few Turkish liras.

“Then Satan whispered to him; he said, “O Adam, shall I direct you to the tree of eternity and possession that will not deteriorate?” [Koran 20:120]

After gaining control of the post of Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Berat Albayrak “pushed through preferential Tax Amnesty legislation written by former Çalık associates. The law, called the ‘Wealth Peace Act’, would permit Çalık to repatriate unlimited amounts of offshore cash tax-free. Albayrak’s offshore dealings were exposed in a combination of leaked financial documents and the Redhack e-mails as part of the European Investigative Collaboration (EIC) network’s #MaltaFiles.” “ [77]

Islamic State’s Turkish home bases

The “Islamic State” organisation became bigtime in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep. Lying not far from the border with Syria and being a sizeable multi-ethnic, but mainly Sunni city, ISIS recruitment and training in Gaziantep proved very effective to the group’s expansion. Some commentators went so far as to say ‘Antep is the logistical base of the organization in Turkey aligning across the Syrian-Turkish border with Jarablus and Azaz, and from there to Raqqa. CHP MP, Aran Ardam, claimed at that time that “ISIS had around 200 networks in Turkey and that there were active cells in Istanbul…” [78]

Three Antep based, ISIS leaders of Turkish origin, İlhami Balı, Mustafa Dokumacı and Yunus Durmaz, were reportedly involved in the twin terror attacks in Ankara in October 2015. Hurriyet newspaper reported “Yunus Emre Alagöz, one of the suicide bombers in the Oct. 10, 2015 Ankara attack which claimed 101 lives, and his brother, Abdurrahman Alagöz, who killed 33 students in a similar attack in Suruç on July 20, 2015, were both members of the ‘Dokumacılar’ group.” [79]

The porous character of the border between Syria and Turkey also allowed the AKP government to support Jabhat al-Nusra’s local reign in Idlib [80] with hundreds of foreign fighters arriving from countries like Turkmenistan along with weaponry freely transiting the border after arriving in Turkey via mysterious air carrier routings like Azerbaijani Silk Way Airlines. [81] The same major border transit points were used by ISIS recruits until foreign pressure on Erdoğan meant he had to attempt to save face and carry out limited strikes on ISIS while striking YPG Kurdish guerrillas at the same time under the auspices of the euphemistically named Operation Euphrates Shield.

Among the ranks of the jihadists numerous Turkish and Turkmeni fighters are still to be found, including, it is said, personnel from Turkish Intelligence. Turkish recruits were said to number in the thousands. [82] Many an ISIS captive taken prisoner by Kurdish YPG forces stated the same whilst coolly admitting to having carried out mass executions. In one such case, filmed by a Jewish reporter, the videotape interview disclosed gruesome details of the beheadings of civilians, executed simply because they were not Wahhabist followers. The captive also reported on the good relations the group enjoyed with Turkey and the numerous Turks in their ranks. [83] Pro-jihadist propaganda was widely disseminated in Turkish and websites were allowed to flourish. [84]

Erdoğan was displaying his huge ambitions towards becoming the key Sunni Islamist leader in the wider region, hence his addresses on the Al Aqsa mosque crisis calling for Muslim unity in action against Israel. Erdoğan upholds the concept of the ‘Caliphate’ as well as reviving the Turkish Pan-Turanian ‘Empire’ incorporating the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and Iraq’s Turkmen.

SADAT

Pro-Islamist, former Turkish Armed Forces General Adnan Tanrıverdi, later head of SADAT, had been appointed Erdogan’s military advisor.

SADAT presents itself as a company dealing in ‘International Defense Consulting (Uluslarasi Savunma Danismanliği). The SADAT website flew a banner denying negative allegations in the media commenting: “In order as to inform yourselves about the false reporting concerning our company and Adnan Tanrıverdi click here!” [85] However, its promotional blurb made its mercenary training activity clear to “the countries that it serves.” It details in Turkish, Arabic and English the brochures available concerning: “Military training, military maintenance systems, training modules for air, land and sea forces as well as interior security forces. Tanrıverdi spearheads a pro-Islamic agenda in serving Muslim countries in rivalry to private Western defense and consultancy companies writing in bad English:

“This urged us to found “SADAT International Defense Consultancy Company” for Islamic countries or friendly countries to bring organized idealist and capable Officers and NCOs having broad experiences and qualifications from Turkish Armed Forces after their services in various units and branches of TAF, to care for national values of Islamic countries based on the co-benefits of Islamic world when they need military personnel from an armed forces with profound military sensations to get their armies to be set, reorganized, modernized and trained by…..

“Turkish Armed Forces have been providing training, consultancy and ordnance services in 22 other Turkish or Friendly Islamic Countries already but still seem not possible to respond all of 60 Islamic countries’ all needs at defense sector.

“In order to provide services for their needs, to help them prevent from dependence on western crusader imperialist countries and to help establishment of a Defensive Collaboration and Defensive Industrial Cooperation among Islamic Countries with the intend of serving Islamic Union; SADAT International Defense Consultancy Construction Industry and Trade Incorporation was founded by 23 brave enterprising co-owners with the support of 64 successful Officers and NCOs who have served in various units of Turkish Armed Forces and respectful to Islamic values.” [86]

Detailed evidence of AKP’s relations with jihadists and the party’s close links with SADAT is set forth in a well-sourced fashion on the Turkishpedia website that merits close reading. It claimed inter alia on SADAT:

“Adnan Tanrıverdi was retired without his consent from the Turkish Armed Forces in the 90s due to his fundamentalist belief when he was holding rank of Brigadier General. He is the Honorary President of the association named ASDER (Association of Justice Defenders) founded by the people who were retired from the TSK because of their Islamist tendencies.

Tanrıverdi has established private security firm SADAT on February 28, 2012 together with ASDER members Reşat Fidan, Nuretin Yavuz, Fethi Kıran, Haluk Yildirim.

“He is in close connection with the leading members of the AKP government including Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag and Mustafa Şentop. Tanrıverdi is a columnist in the Yeni Akit Daily (Formerly known as Vakit), which adopts a radical religious publication policy and gives unconditional support to Erdogan. From time to time, Yeni Akit daily publishes news to legitimize actions of Al Qaeda and ISIS.

“In his interview published on his personal blog about the July 15 coup, he claims that the United States which controls the Gülen movement was behind the coup and that emptied positions with post-coup large scale purges to be filled by competent (meaning, pro-Erdogan) officers and the TSK will be even stronger. As can be understood from his statement, pro-Erdogan officers with radical tendencies who cannot find the opportunity to rise within the secular TSK had the opportunity to rise within the TSK after the attempted coup…” [87]

“Islamabul” and TÜRGEV (Turkish Foundation for Youth and Education)

German Bild had also fingered the TÜRGEV association and reported that Bilal Erdoğan reportedly received “230 million dollars for only 1.2 million dollars” for a 30-year lease of public ground in Istanbul for the Association. Turkish newspaper, Anadolu Türk Haber (ATH) reported that the foundation (established by the Erdoğan family) bought up protected plots of land with the budget of Istanbul’s Fatih municipality.

ATH cited Aydınlık newspaper claiming, “the General Directorate of Foundations allocated free of charge for 49 years some of the most valuable land from Eminönü, one of the most central districts of İstanbul, to the TÜRGEV foundation, which has been turned over to the management of PM Erdoğan’s daughter, son and relatives.” [88]

Next up for consideration in this saga are the Osmanlı Ocaklar (Ottoman Hearths) the word ‘ocaklar’ (hearths) provokes links with the Ülkücü Ocakları – the Grey Wolf/Bozkurt ‘Idealist hearths’ foundations. The paramilitary ‘youth’ group swears loyalty to Erdoğan: The group’s website also confirms its ideology as that of: “being a soldier who wears a shroud for the leader with the shroud.” The leader is apparently Erdoğan, who frequently reminds the audience in his speeches that he departed for his holy voyage in politics with his shroud — in a clear reference to the idea that he is ready to be a martyr. In other words, Erdoğan is stressing the idea that he is willing to risk everything for his cause without explaining what that cause actually is.

Kadir Canpolat, the head of Osmanlı Ocakları, is an open fan of Erdoğan. Speaking in Isparta, Canpolat said: “We are soldiers of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. I want to thank Tayyip Erdoğan. We owe Osmanlı Ocakları to him. We would not exist if he did not exist!” [89]

The pro-Kurdish HDP accused the group of targeting its members and premises as well as provoking street violence and becoming entangled in the Gezi Park protests. Osmanlı Ocakları members have also attacked CHP premises and one local branch leader publicly praised ISIS following the Suruç bombing in the Kurdish south-east. [90]

Further Decrees by the Turkish Super President

The Turkish Super President holds to ransom the police chiefs he has personally appointed, the Chief of Staff and the judiciary – all on the basis of unswerving loyalty to himself. At the same time political opponents and media workers that challenge him face spurious allegations of support for “terrorism.”

On the first anniversary of the failed ‘coup’ in July 2017 a fresh decree was published on the basis of which “7,395 state employees including teachers, academics, military and police officers (were sacked), bringing the number of the dismissed to more than 110,000. The government called the crackdown necessary to purge state institutions of those linked to Gülen, but critics say the dismissals are arbitrary and paths to recourse severely curtailed.” [91] Many commentators, including the Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) ascribed the coup plot to Erdoğan himself saying:

“Based on publicly available data, the coup indictments, testimonials in court trials, private interviews, reviews of military expert opinions and other evidence collected by researchers, SCF is fairly confident that this attempt did not even qualify a coup bid in any sense of military mobilization which was unusually limited in numbers, confined in few cities, poorly managed, defied the established practices, tradition, rules of engagement and standard operating procedures in Turkish military.

This was a continuation of a series of false flags that were uncovered in the last couple of years under the authoritarian rule of Erdoğan regime and it was certainly the bloodiest one,” said Abdullah Bozkurt, the President of SCF…” [92]

Erdoğan’s forces, including those based in Bashiqa, allied with the KDP peshmerga, have begun to face increasing opposition from the Shi’a militias in the disputed territories and in Tel Afar, seized by ISIS in 2014 for being rich in oil. ISIS also executed Shi’a Turkmen Iraqis in these areas.93 Al Masdar News said the ISIS-linked Amaq Agency published photos of a Turkish suicide bomber, nicknamed Abu Musab Al-Turki, striking the newly liberated government-held town of Tal As Saman…” [94] Qatar had been arming the jihadist groups along with Turkey. Currently Erdoğan stands shoulder to shoulder with Qatar publicly.

Testimony

One of the thousands of displaced Syrian Kurds that was tortured by Erdoğan’s proxies inside the Kurdish area of Syria between Al Bab in Syria and Nusaybin in Turkey said in confidence:

“The Turkish-sponsored jihadists abducted me from my home – I am not a PYD member, just an olive grove farmer. They held and tortured me for three weeks, burning me, threatening to kill me, beating me till they broke my bones and starving me. Then they demanded a ransom, and occupied my land, expelling me and my family to a distant village so they could seize our home and olive groves. After my family had paid them for my release, I was so weak I could barely even stand up alone. I was just skin and bone. The same jihadists threatened me again that if I should say anything to anyone, they would take me back and kill my wife and children. This is Turkey’s merciless Kurdish policy. This is Operation Olive Branch – to destroy our lives and our olive farms.”

(Ahmed (an alias), 44, olive farmer, and married father of four).

The brother-in-law of Al-Zarqawi known as Khaled al-Aruri was also hidden inside the Turkish -controlled Idlib area but the Americans obtained intelligence sufficient to undertake a successful strike on the vehicle in which he was travelling and killed him in June 2020 without tipping off the Turks. He was reputedly the leader of Al Qaeda’s branch in NW Syria, known as Huras al-Din.

Al Monitor reported:

Huras al-Din’s statement said Aruri was the group’s deputy emir for martyrdom, though others have suggested he may have been the group’s de facto leader. The veteran jihadi fought in Afghanistan both before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and fought against the US occupation of Iraq “from its first days” alongside Zarqawi, the statement read. Zarqawi was killed in a 2006 US airstrike near Baquba, Iraq. [95]

Syrian Kurdish forces have also captured or killed an unknown number of the jihadists operating in this area [96] including members of Ahrar al-Sharqia, (part of the re-named ‘Syrian National Army’ deployed by Turkey), Jabhat al-Shamiya, Firqar al-Hamza, Liwa al-Shamal, Sultan Murad, and others recycled from ISIS from inside the Turkish Army itself. Thousands of the captives would later be detained in Al Hol camp. Several breakout attempts were made.

Amnesty International’s report of 18 October 2019 attested to ‘damning evidence of war crimes and other violations by Turkish forces and their allies there stating: “Turkish military forces and a coalition of Turkey-backed Syrian armed groups have displayed a shameful disregard for civilian life, carrying out serious violations and war crimes, including summary killings and unlawful attacks that have killed and injured civilians, during the offensive into northeast Syria….” [97]

Barzani links with Turkey and with ISIS

In February 2022, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) exposed the former trade ISIS had enjoyed with Swedish telecom giant, Ericsson, and its local KDP partner, Korek, whose chairman was the KDP leader’s son, Sirwan Barzani. Ericsson paid tens of millions of dollars to continue to do business in an area that had come under ISIS control. Protection money was also paid to smuggle equipment through ISIS controlled areas on a special route dubbed the “Speedway” bypassing regular checkpoints. Ericsson asked Barzani’s Korek company to obtain permission from ‘local authority ISIS’ to continue working in Mosul, also avoiding paying customs duties through a transport contractor. Internal records were leaked and verified by ICIJ. Ericsson was carrying out internal investigations of ‘alleged corrupt practices in 15 countries, including Iraq, according to the ICIJ research. “The documents show a pattern of bribery and corruption so widespread, and company oversight so weak, that millions of dollars in Ericsson payments couldn’t be accounted for.” [98] An innocent sub-contractor was sent in to do the deal for Ericsson but was instead captured by ISIS who demanded to speak to Ericsson directly. “Affan said ISIS demanded millions of dollars, threatening to “blow up” the company’s offices if the money was not handed over. Affan accused Ericsson of abandoning him to his fate. “They sold me,” he said, adding that he had been released after several weeks but had to flee the city for his own safety. [99]

Sirwan Barzani is no stranger to allegations of corruption concerning Korek, which he habitually denies. The Barzani clan pay top British lawyers to stifle exposure. Sirwan Barzani took up a position on the frontline between the Kurdish and ISIS-held positions after ISIS took Mosul in June 2014. Rasech Barzani ‘collected $1.2 million from Ericsson for offering ‘business intelligence and facilitation to the chairman of Korek – AKA Sirwan Barzani. The Ericsson List document has provided short profiles on the key local protagonists. Of Sirwan Barzani it is said, “Ericsson received a request from Sirwan Barzani for a $50,000 donation and approved it under the pretext of supporting “refugees and displaced children in Kurdistan…the ultimate beneficiary of the money couldn’t be traced…”100 Ericsson’s North Middle East President, Tarek Saadi (2009-2017) collaborated with Jawhar Surchi. He went on to join Korek. A tribal leader from the Surchi tribe, Jawhar Surchi, profiled with Saadi and Ericsson and is named by the ICIJ as ‘The Fixer’. Surchi co-owned and was chairman of al-Awsat Telecommunication Services, just as Sirwan Barzani was with Korek. ICIJ states that Surchi was Ericsson’s face in Iraq for fifteen years to “navigate regulatory bureaucracies, evade taxes and secure contracts often through suspicious payments and gifts to officials and executives, including the CEO of Asiacell”, one of Iraq’s three telecom companies…Ericsson made payments totalling more than $79 million over eight years to Al-Awsat, most of which went to Surchi’s personal account, according to the report.: Surchi denied any sort of corruption.

Yazidi community’s suit against the Barzanis and former Iraqi PM, Haidar al-Abadi for ISIS atrocities in Shengal

In a written complaint filed with the UNHCR Human Rights Council Complaint Procedure Unit lodged on 17 July 2019, the Yazidis’ representatives asserted (as copied in an anonymised form online) that it concerns:

1. Government of Kurdistan – Massoud Barzani,

Information concerning the author (s) of the communication or the alleged victim (s) if other than the author:

Nechirvan Barzani (outgoing as of July 2019) De facto leader Sirwan Barzani (Ministry of Commander-in-Chief Peshmerga), United States of America – Donald J. Trump, in his capacity as Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the United States. John Joseph Sullivan, Acting Secretary of State

We respectfully present our view and complaints on the practice of state actors, both the administration of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi and the administration of Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Regional Government, in support of filing criminal charges against these individuals and their governments.

In April 9, 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish government seized control of the Shingal area by use of Pershmerga troops and formed the Barzani Council. The Council was made up of non-Yezidi nationals and served as the defacto regional government of that area.

The Council included:

Massoud Barzani, as titular head of the Council.

Nechirvan Idris Barzani, who had de-facto control over the council.

Masrour Barzani, a (sic) nephew (actually son) of Massoud, as head of the Kurdistan Region Security Council in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the individual responsible for the control of security and intelligence efforts in the Shingal area

Ashti Hawrami, as the natural resources minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, and the individual responsible for the coordination of oil contracts in the Kurdish region. 

Aslam Usoyan, a Russian of Kurdish descent who was actively involved in organized criminal activities in Russia. He provided significant financial support to the Kurdish Government through his businesses and other financial networks. (He was killed in 2013).

Vladislav Leontyev and Zakhariy Kalashov, ethnic Kurds and prominent members of Russian and Kurdish criminal networks.

Tariel Oniani, someone actively involved in Kurdish and Georgian criminal networks and the Kutalsi crime family.

Sieron Yudkovich Mogilevich, another Russian criminal network head, who had sold weapons to Sheikh Ahmed Aburisha, Cemil Bayik, a PKK leader, and also to Kurdish ISIS and other terrorist groups.

This council worked towards the benefit of the oil companies Exxon, Rosneft, Gulf Keystones Petroleum, and ASA Norwegian Oil. Starting in 2007, the Iraqi and Kurdish Governments entered into an agreement to open up Ain Ghazal and Haxali oil fields in Shingal (Sinjar) for oil production. The Kurdish Government started forcing the Yezidi people off our own land: an estimated 300 were forced to move to a new site. In addition, three sacred sites were destroyed…

In 2011, the Kurdish administration approved a contract with oil companies Exxon and Rosneft for development in Dohuk and the surrounding areas, including West Mosul: all on Yezidi territory. His government approved applications from foreign and domestic companies promoting destructive large-scale mining operations that encroach on Yezidi land. New economic zones and dams are being built on ancestral lands, while new deals have been clinched by the government for a palm oil plantation expansion covering land in Shingal, Dohuk, West Mosul and Lalish – Lalish being one of our most sacred sites – and which is presently under control of the Kurdish Government for land development. President Barzani’s policy of favoring big foreign and local businesses is at the expense of the poor majority. It is also at the expense of the indigenous Yezidi population’s rights to land, territories and resources.

In 2011, Rex Tillerson, then President of Exxon, signed an agreement with the Kurdish Government to allow for oil drilling on Yezidi lands. This included the oil fields numbered 31-34 in Dohuk and Mosul. This agreement was illegal under Iraqi law because the Iraqi Constitution states that land decisions must involve the indigenous populations when those decisions will affect them.

In 2013, Exxon employed local security forces which fired upon Yezidi activists, killing two of them. The local Kurdish Government and Exxon refused take any action. They turned a blind eye to any claim that Yezidis had for their ancestral land and bought land seized from the Yezidis.

It is estimated that between 2011 and 2013 that over 5,000 Yezidi were forced from their lands so that Exxon could conduct oil drilling and other supporting activities.

Chronological details of abuses and complaints then follow in the document. When the account reaches the period of ISIS it notes significantly:

In 2014, the Kurdish Government and Barzani offered Yezidi communities in Shingal and Dohuk money to buy them out of their lands, but the Yezidi community leaders turned down this offer in March of 2014.

In August of 2014, the Kurdish Government and the Barzani Council met with ISIS. This was only days before ISIS conducted a major offensive into the Shingal area. Our investigators have collected video footage of Kurdish troops meeting with ISIS outside of Shingal on the morning of the attack. Kurdish troops helped ISIS to carry out genocide by coming in the day before the attack and taking weapons and also boarding up some of the houses of certain religious leaders. On the day of the attack, Kurdish Forces withdrew from the area, but located tanks blocking the main escape routes of the city and also fired upon any Yezidi who attempted to leave the city. After the attack, at the hospital where Yezidi fled to to seek medical treatment Dr. Kifah Mohammad Kati, Director of the Shingal Hospital denied medical treatment to Yezidi and also committed heinous acts of murder by beginning operations on wounded Yezidi and ceasing medical treatment in the middle of procedures, thus causing the patients to die on the operating table.

On the day of the attack, Mustafa Barzani was leading the Peshmerga troops. Esmat Argashi, (Should be Ismat Argoshi) head of the Kurdish Secret Police101 directed members of the secret police to capture and kill Yezidi women and men. Peshmerga General Ala Talabani? helped carry out attacks on Yezidi by giving comfort and aid to ISIS solders by providing weapons and material support as well as the locations of Yezidi in the city. In the early morning hours of the attack, according to an Anbar Tribal Leader named Mashaan Abrahim, in a statement given to our investigator Mohammad Raja on November 11, 2018, he met with Mustafa Barzani and Massoud Barzani in the Presidential Palace in Erbil and discussed the details of the attack.

In September of 2017 we formed our own autonomous government, offered a treaty on autonomy and entered into eleven months of negotiations with the Iraqi Government regarding our rights over land and natural resources. During the period of these talks, President Barzani of the Kurdistan Regional Authority used his military forces to intimidate the Yezidi from pursuing autonomy. This included an attack on the town of Khansour on March 17, 2017 which resulted in the deaths of 10, the injuring of 43, and the arrest of some 1,500 individuals, all of which were Yezidi. We have video footage substantiating this accusation…

In August of 2018 a deal between Iraq, the Kurds, and the US State Department was reached to allow Sunni Kurdish tribal leaders to return to Shingal and hold government positions they held from 2007 to 2014 thus reconstituting the Barzani Council which had dissolved to allow for the ISIS invasion. In this agreement, the area was divided with the Barzani Council given mandate to govern northern Shingal and the PKK a mandate to govern southern Shingal. This deal goes against Iraq’s own laws and constitution, which states that no non-Yezidi can govern Yezidi territory. These Kurdish tribal leaders were illegally given government positions in 2003 – 2014 by Barzani as part of his Kurdish-ization program in order to stop our Yezidi indigenous movement for autonomy, and thereby gain control over our land and oil resources.

As a result of their return to power in the Shingal area, the Barzani Council resumed their activities to remove Yezidi from their lands and dislocated 30 Yezidi from their homes. In April of 2018, the United States was informed by representatives of our government that these activities were being undertaken. However, our concerns were dismissed and the US continued to support the Barzani Council and its activities to take land from the Yezidi. This included providing weapons and financial support to the Barzani Council…[102]

The oil deal details given on the Yazidi complaint form are correct. The role of Turkey, Rex Tillerson and Exon were explored in further detail in my article, The Mad Dogs of Mosul that opened by noting: “Obama had called on Turkey to attack ISIS four days before they headed into Mosul stating the Turks had attack helicopters and jets which they regularly used against the PKK. But Turkey refused and the US was denied permission to fly over Turkish airspace to attack ISIS directly… ISIS took Mosul.” [103]

The current state of play over Kurdistan’s oil Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) signed independently of Baghdad being one of suspended animation has not stopped the leading families of the KDP and PUK from continuing to pocket the profits. They are part and parcel of the same post-Ba’ath Muhasasa system of government in Baghdad after all.

A forthcoming IBBC (Iraq British Business Council) Autumn conference in Dubai highlights the key Iraqi, Kurdish and British players claiming: “Iraq is forming a new government with high oil revenues and relative stability in the country, this means a raft of investment and infrastructural opportunities will soon follow.

Key speakers include:

Governor or the Central Bank of Iraq -Mustafa Ghalib Mukheef
Prime Minster of Iraq’s Special Advisor Dr Abdukareem Al Faisal
The Governor of Basrah – Assad Al Eidani
KRG investment Minister /Chairman of the KRI Investment Board Mohammed Shukri
President of the Trade Bank of Iraq – Salem Chalabi
British Ambassador to Iraq – Mark Bryson-Richardson

IBBC President – Baroness Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne

Standard Chartered Bank – Mohammad al-Dulaimy

Iraq National Oil Company 2nd Vice Chair – Laith al-Shaher (also the Director General of the Legal Directorate of the Ministry of Oil

Rumaila Operating Organisation – Zaid al-Yasseri

International Finance Corporation – Bilal al-Sugheyer [104]

The conference named Iraq- Identifying Business Opportunities to be held at the Dubai Marina follows the spring conference held in London at Mansion House where KDP Kurdistan Prime Minister, Masrour Barzani met Baroness Nicholson [105]. Sardar Babani of the Sardar Group received an award for excellence.

It costs £900 for the two-day session. Remote attendance costs £150.

It all goes to show just how convenient ISIS was – and may still be – to business.

Perhaps the 1.2 million internally displaced (IDPs) in Iraq might like free passes to the IBBC conference to find out about “business opportunities in Iraq”.