ISIL, Turkey: The Dream of Restoring the Glories of Sublime Ottoman State

“We have witnessed the severity of the ISIL organization in demolishing all the shrines, temples and tombs, even those that are attributed to the prophets and the companions, as being a manifestation of shirk (polytheism), as said by them. However, when it comes to the shrine of the grandfather of the Turkish Ottomans “Suleiman Pasha” inside Syria and in the areas under the ISIL control, not only did ISIL refrain from destroying it, but facilitated the entry of Turkish troops to such shrines and protected them. The ISIL forces are to date protecting it and did not destroy it”.

The writer Nawaf Qadimi passed these words unnoticed, and in a two-part article published in the Al-Arabi Al-Jadeeed newspaper, funded by Qatar, the Saudi Muslim Brotherhood writer answered a question title: “A big question ... how was the ISIL created?”, then another annex followed under the title “Back to the question ... who stands behind the ISIL?”. The answer came sequentially: the government of Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran, all the way to Syria ... they are all clearly naïve about what is meant by Qadimi’s above mentioned turn of phrase.

Recep Tayyeb Erdogan stood on July/2012 before his Party’s audience to justify the intervention of his government in the crisis in Syria, saying: It is that we are the descendants of the Seljuks, and the remnants of the Sublime Ottoman State... “The Justice and Development Party (AKP) is a party in which the spirit of the Seljuks [1] and the Ottomans is deeply rooted”. Putting emphasis on his position, he repeated it while addressing another speech on September in the same year, saying: “We are walking in our conqueror ancestors’ footsteps starting from Sultan Alp Arslan reaching to Fatih Sultan Mehmet “the Conquer” [2]. Having assumed power in 1046 AD, Alp Arslan, the second ruler of the Seljuk state, has been able to expand the boundaries of his state inciting sectarianism in his wars against the Fatimids, particularly. During his reign, Nezamiyeh schools, which were toughening up a certain doctrine and which considered other Islamic doctrines as infidels, have been established. He also lavished funds on advocates being brought by him to Baghdad to accuse the Fatimids as infidels and to call for fighting them. Perhaps Alp Arslan’s inheritance, which Erdogan is glorifying, help us understand Turkey’s policy not only in terms of its interference in the Syrian crisis, but even regarding its support for the Takfiri organizations, the foremost the ISIL.

The ISIL’s funding father is Erdogan’s personal friend

The name of the Saudi businessman Yassin al-Qadi has been linked to organizations classified as terrorist internationally. In particular, the foreign press and the Turkish opposition media describe him as “al-Qaeda’s funding father”. After the events of September 11/2001, al-Qadi- along with other figures- has been included in the world’s list of terrorists, and his name was stereotyped as a terrorist man. This made several countries ban him from entering into their territories, Turkey was one of them. Earlier, the Turkish media documented a photo scandal: Erdogan’s meetings with Yassin al-Qadi as well as long meetings with his son Bilal Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The scandal that was leaked by Turkish security elements came in the context of the case of corruption of which the son of the former Turkish Prime Minister has been accused. Based upon this, a large number of elements of the security corps were arrested being accused of plotting a coup against the government.

Nevertheless, the French journalist Thierry Meyssan describes Yassin al-Qadi as a personal friend of both Dick Cheney (former U.S. Vice President) and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to him, al-Qadi visited Turkey four times during 2012, and “his plane used to land at the second airport of Istanbul, and was being welcomed by the Prime Minister personally, without going through the smart gate, and after cutting the security cameras’ power supply”.

The Turkish Gmehoriet Newspaper intended to publish details about the investigations conducted by the Turkish judiciary on the same case, and mentioned that Recep Tayyip Erdogan introduced Yassine al-Qadi as a Saudi businessman visiting Turkey to invest and denied that he is a terrorist. It quoted him as saying: “I trust Mr. Al-Qadi just as I trust myself. He is an almsgiver”.

The Turkish newspaper, after publishing Erdogan’s utterances before the Turkish judiciary, revealed that the Turkish police monitored 12 visits made by the Saudi man to Turkey. Seven out of these visits have been made with the help of Erdogan, the period when he was banned from entering Turkey, because his name was added as one of the world wanted terrorists in the list of the American FBI. The newspaper commented saying: “When the Turkish police was looking for al-Qadi, he was holding meetings with the Prime Minister”. Also, it published a photograph that showed separately the aforesaid man, Erdogan, and the Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, when they were going to a meeting that gathered them. The newspaper noted that Fidan himself met with al-Qadi 5 times when Al-Qadi has been banned from entering the Turkish territory.

Yet, the interesting thing is the leaked recordings published by the newspaper that disclose that Yassin al-Qadi used to give orders to the Erdogan’s office. He used to call to inform them that he had decided today to meet with Erdogan, and that the latter should not engage in any other obligations. The newspaper reported details about the dates of the meetings between the two men, what implies that the meetings were being attended by Fidan and by the Egyptian businessman Osama Qutob; the son of Muhammad Qutob the brother of the Brotherhood leader Sayyid Qutob who holds the Turkish citizenship and is living with his father in Turkey at present. This also mean that the meetings were taking place sometimes at the home of the Turkish businessman Mustafa Latif Topas in Istanbul, attended by Erdogan’s son and Moaz the son of al-Qadi. The recordings verify that Qutob was in charge of delivering the messages from the insurgents in the battlefield in Syria to Erdogan, what signifies that the meetings of these figures exceeded the issues of investment, and perhaps they exploited the title of a charity practice!

“The Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH)” provides a cover for terrorism

According to the American broadcaster Dave Emory’s blog, the Turkish media and political sides that oppose the Justice and Development Party (AKP) accuse Erdogan and particularly his son Bilal of taking advantage of the “Humanitarian Relief Foundation” (IHH) as a cover to support terrorist organizations. He revealed that the organization is funded through Yassin al-Qadi himself, and that the Turkish organization is one of the branches of the “Union of Good” (UG) Association, which is overseen by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He pointed out that the branch of the “Union of Good” was banned in Germany in 2010, because of its connection with “terrorist organizations”, and that the State Department listed the “Union of Good” as a foreign terrorist organization.

In the same context, Thierry Meyssan put emphasize on this when he talked about the Turkish police car that stopped “a truck loaded with weapons sent to al-Qaida near the border with Syria. One of the three men, who were arrested, stated that the load belongs to a humanitarian Association belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood organization in Turkey, while another one of the detainees said that he is an element in a mission related to the Turkish intelligence service”.

Turkey is the pathway of oil, fighters, and weapons to the ISIL

This data comes after what have been broadcasted by the Turkish and foreign media about the Turkish role in transferring the oil of Raqqa, Deir al-Zour, Mosul and other cities that are controlled by the Takfiri organization to the global market. The director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis Theodore Karasik talked about three million dollars received by the ISIL as daily revenues out of its oil revenues, the amount that funds its activities.

Those returning from Turkey refer to the public sympathy in the pro-government Turkish street with the ISIL. Social networking websites publish photos of Islamic libraries in Istanbul selling “T-shirts” and goods with the ISIL logo on them. Perhaps this news is no longer shocking after what the German (ARD) Television has revealed regarding the opening of an office for the ISIL in al-Fateh Street in Istanbul, being ran by Turks. Through it, the process of supporting and supplying the Takfiri organization in Iraq and Syria with funds and fighters takes place.

Turkey: ISIL items in stock

The German channel itself revealed in a video report aired by it that the ISIL has training camps on the Turkish territory:

1- The GAZIANTEP Camp: a training camp for the ISIL fighters
According to the report published by the website of “Today’s Zaman”, an English-language newspaper in Turkey, the Governor of the Gaziantep (Erdal Ata) rushed to hold a press conference to deny what has been revealed by the German television. However, he spoke about the arrest of 19 elements that belong to the ISIL in the city, among those who came from European countries before committing them to trial.

Additionally, the Lebanese journalist Hassan Hamade, in an earlier interview with Al-Manar, drew attention to the existence of three training camps in Turkey for the fighters of extremist organizations [3].

2- The ORFA Camp, southeastern Turkey: a camp out of which the gunmen came when they attacked the Kasab city that its residents are predominantly Armenian.

3- The OSMANIYA camp in Adana, southern Turkey: It is directly near the major bases of the U.S. Air Force in the Turkish territory. Yet, what is interesting is that the Osmaniya camp is a stone’s throw away from the gas pipelines points of intersection coming from Iraq and Central Asia that empty the freight in the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea.

4- The KARMAN camp, it is also in Adana but is much closer to Istanbul.
Moreover, a document published by the French journalist Thierry Meyssan, earlier, revealed that Turkey facilitated the infiltration of 5,000 fighters, who belong to al-Qaeda, to the Syrian territory after receiving training in Libya.

Ahead of talking about the relationship between the ISIL and Turkey, the American “CNN” channel in late 2013 broadcasted a video report, in which it documented that Turkey facilitated the infiltration of foreign fighters to the Syrian border. The correspondent of the American Channel took photographs of the young men coming from Mauritania, PIA, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Britain in the airport of Hatay, a province on the border with Syria. He met an Iraqi fighter, who turned to be belonging to the ISIL organization, and while interviewing him he said: “We want an Islamic caliphate extending from Iraq to Syria, without barriers separating between the two countries, and under the Islamic rule”. The report showed that the headquarters that raised the banner of the ISIL were visible from the Turkish territory.

Perhaps the report of the American TV Network clarifies the argument of the Turkish journalist Orhan Kama Genghis: “The strongholds of the ISIL are located close to the Turkish border, and this did not happen coincidentally”. The Turkish journalist Kadri Gursel talks about the fact that the Turkish border territories have turned into an easy pathway facilitating the arrival and departure of the militants, where there are no formal procedures (visas, etc…) that could bother them, referring to the cooperation of the Turkish intelligence agency with the militants. Above and beyond, the Turkish opposition Republican People’s Party MP Muharram Ingee said that the ISIL leader “Mazen Abu Mohammed” received treatment in one of the Turkish government hospitals in the city of Hatay on April 2014, publishing a photo of the terrorist man in the hospital.

Reviewing these data provide an early answer to the question of the Saudi writer, Nawaf Qadimi, who is known for his support for the Muslim Brotherhood, where the phenomenon of the ISIL leads us to evoke history. The Seljuks drew the policies to expand their influence and their tools were the advocates of takfir and the recruiting of fighters in the name of religion. Here is Erdogan in actual fact walking in the footsteps of the ancestors and painting policies, and the tools are the texts of takfir for which he is recruiting fighters in the name of religion itself! That is how history is enabling us to understand our present...