MESOP Report: More than 100,000 fake Turkish passports given to ISIL

TODAY’S ZAMAN / ISTANBUL – 17 Apr 2015 – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants were given more than 100,000 fake Turkish passports in order to travel to Turkey and then enter Syria to join ISIL, a daily reported on Thursday. According to a story in the Meydan daily, A.G., an aide of Nurali T., a Uyghur Turk working for ISIL to provide militants with passports worldwide, Nurali T.’s office in İstanbul’s Zeytinburnu district functions as an ISIL passport office. Each passport was sold for $200, A.G. told Meydan.More than 50,000 Uyghur Turks came to Turkey with these fake passports from China via Thailand and Malaysia and entered Syria after staying a day in İstanbul, Meydan reported.

A.G. claimed that most of the Uyghurs with fake passports were caught by police in Turkish airports but they were released in Turkey after their passports were seized. “The Uyghurs’ release in Turkey is due to a secret [little-known] Turkish law on Uyghur Turks. More than 50,000 Uyghurs joined ISIL through this method,” A.G. added.

A.G. further said that Nurali T. organizes recruits from around the world from his İstanbul office. Militants who entered Turkey with these fake passports are hosted either in hotels or guesthouses for a day before they join ISIL in Syria, A.G. said.

The Turkish government’s stance toward ISIL has so far been ambiguous. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government has been accused of supporting the terrorist organization by turning a blind eye to its militants crossing the border and even buying its oil. There have also been claims that Turkey has sent weapons to opposition groups fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The NATO ally has also been facing a backlash for its reluctance to join US-led coalition efforts to eliminate ISIL, feeding speculation that this reluctance may be an indicator that some Turkish officials are ideologically close to the terrorist group.

Based on a 2014 report, Sezgin Tanrıkulu, deputy chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) said that ISIL terrorists fighting in Syria have also been claimed to have been treated in hospitals in Turkey. However, publicly, Turkish authorities have strongly condemned the terrorist acts of ISIL militants and say these actions have nothing to do with Islam. http://www.todayszaman.com/national_report-more-than-100000-fake-turkish-passports-given-to-isil_377534.html