REYHANLI, Turkey - Before their blitz into Iraq earned
them the title of the Middle East’s most feared insurgency, the
jihadists of the Islamic State treated this Turkish town near the Syrian
border as their own personal shopping mall.
And eager to aid any and all enemies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey rolled out the red carpet.
In
dusty market stalls, among the baklava shops and kebab stands, locals
talk of Islamist fighters openly stocking up on uniforms and the latest
Samsung smartphones. Wounded jihadists from the Islamic State
and the al-Nusra Front — an al-Qaeda offshoot also fighting the Syrian
government — were treated at Turkish hospitals. Most important, the
Turks winked as Reyhanli and other Turkish towns became way stations for
moving foreign fighters and arms across the border.
“Turkey
welcomed anyone against Assad, and now they are killing, spreading
their disease, and we are all paying the price,” said Tamer Apis, a
politician in Reyhanli, where two massive car bombs killed 52 people
last year. In a nearby city, Turkish authorities seized another car
packed with explosives in June, raising fears of an Islamic
State-inspired campaign to export sectarian strife to Turkey.
“It was not just us,” Apis said. “But this is a mess of Turkey’s making.”
The
U.S. military is back in action over the skies of Iraq, launching
airstrikes against the Islamist militants who have taken control of
large swaths of Iraq and Syria. But for many months, the militants were
able to grow in power partly by using the border region of a NATO member
— Turkey — as a strategically vital supply route and entry point to
wage their war.
Alarmed by the growing might of the
Islamic State, Turkey has started cracking down. Working with the United
States and European governments, Turkish officials have enacted new
safeguards to detain foreign fighters trying to get into Syria and
launched a military offensive aimed at curtailing the smuggling of
weapons and supplies across the border.
But in a region
engulfed by a broadening conflict, Turkey is also reaping what it sowed.
It is engaging in border shootouts with rebels it once tactically
aided. It is confronting spillover violence, a cutoff in its trade
routes and a spreading wave of fear in Turkish towns as the Islamic
State wins over defectors from rival opposition groups.
And
despite the new measures, the Islamic State is still slipping through
Turkish nets — raising doubts about international efforts to put a
stranglehold on a radical Sunni group known for public crucifixions and
the beheading of enemies.
“It is not as easy to come
into Turkey anymore,” Abu Yusaf, a 27-year-old senior security commander
for the Islamic State, said in a recent interview conducted in the back
seat of a moving white Honda in Reyhanli. “I myself had to go through
smugglers to get here, but as you see, there are still ways and
methods.”
Wearing a polo shirt and white baseball cap to
blend in on the more secular streets of Turkey, Yusaf, the nom de
guerre of the European-born fighter who joined the group 2 1/2 years ago, added: “We don’t believe in countries . . . breaking and
destroying all borders is our aim. What matters are Islam and a Sunni
reign.”
Asked about the United States’ role in the
region, Yusaf said, “We don’t fear the U.S., we only fear God. We fight
whoever are fighting us. If the U.S. hits us with flowers, we will hit
them back with flowers. But if they hit us with fire, we will hit them
back with fire, also inside their homeland. This will be the same with
any other Western country.”
"The Washington Post," August 12, 2014
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