Genocide Watch exists to predict, prevent, stop, and punish genocide and other forms of mass murder. Our purpose is to build an international movement to prevent and stop genocide.
Staff Login
Turkey Arrests 21 Suspected of Ties to ISIS
Turkey Arrests 21 Suspected of Ties to ISIS
10 July 2015
Image: Turkish police officers in Istanbul on Friday with a suspected member of the Islamic State. Officers also seized arms and ammunition in the dawn raids. CreditEuropean Pressphoto Agency
ISTANBUL — Under pressure from its Western allies to do more to combat Islamist extremists, the Turkish authorities arrested 21 suspected Islamic State members on Friday, the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency reported.
Among those arrested were three foreigners and two prominent Islamic State supporters known to have recruited fighters in Turkey, the local news media reported.
In early-morning raids in Istanbul and Sanliurfa Province, which borders Syria, the Turkish police seized automatic rifles, large ammunition packs and military uniforms, the agency reported.
Turkey is a NATO member and a longtime American ally, but it has been frequently criticized for its reluctance to play a more active role in combating the Islamic State. Western officials have accused Turkey of a degree of ambivalence toward the militant group, which now controls large parts ofSyria and Iraq, and the Turks sometimes give the impression that they see Kurdish autonomy in Syria as a greater threat to their country than the extremists.
“They have a strong stake in things, in stability to their south,” Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said on Tuesday in Washington. “I believe they could do more along the border.”
Thousands of foreign fighters have joined the ranks of the Islamic State over the past year, many of them traveling through Turkey to reach the extremists’ self-declared caliphate in northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq. Pressed by the West to stem the flow, the Turks have detained and deported about 1,500 people trying to reach Syria and have barred more than 14,000 others from entering the country, according to Turkish Foreign Ministry figures. And there have been at least seven smaller police raids across the country in the past two weeks against suspected Islamic State fighters.
Turkey has also stepped up its military presence along the porous Syrian border, deploying additional tanks and troops. But much of that was done after Kurdish forces took control of the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad from the Islamic State in June.
Mr. Carter’s critique aside, other senior American officials said on Friday that Turkey’s recent actions demonstrated the government’s new commitment to fighting the Islamic State, though they said it was too early to say whether the Friday arrests were a major turning point or a symbolic gesture to fend off the Western criticism.
“The Turks are actually trying to do more, and our collective work with them would be vastly aided if we’d stop criticizing them in public,” said one senior Obama administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential assessments. “I don’t think this is a symbolic offering.”
Analysts said that the large-scale raids and arrests on Friday were something new, and were probably based on intelligence obtained from the United States. A delegation of American counterterrorism experts met with Turkish officials in Ankara this week to discuss the fight against the Islamic State.
“Turkey sees Daesh as a major threat, not just to our country but to the entire world,” a government official with knowledge of the issue said on Friday, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with government protocol.
Addressing Western criticism that Turkey had been slow to act against the group, the official said, “Antiterrorist operations take time and require comprehensive intelligence gathering and logistics. This is why.”
Aaron Stein, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based analytical institute, said Turkey might be stepping up its efforts now because it was worried about an Islamic State drive toward the border town of Azaz in northeast Syria.
But he was skeptical that the arrests signaled a major, new antimilitant resolve in Turkey. “The Ebu Hanzala detentions tell us that we have to be cautious,” Mr. Stein said, referring a cleric considered to be the “spiritual leader” of the Islamic State within Turkey, who has repeatedly been arrested and released.
“Much will be determined in the coming days, and whether those arrested face charges and are put behind bars,” Mr. Stein said of the latest raids.
In the Hacibayram neighborhood of Ankara, a known Islamic State recruitment hub, a resident said on Friday that two suspects who were arrested there last week were freed the next day. The resident would not allow his name to be used because he feared reprisals.
“They came back and celebrated the fact that they were only charged for drug abuse,” he said of the two freed suspects. “These arrests will only mean something if these men are locked up for good. They have gone and killed in Syria, then they come back and roam our streets. It’s terrifying.”
Copyright 2015 New York Times
by 
by 
