How Influential Are Turkish Spies Within The Islamic State?

December 20, 2015

Today Zaman is a Turkish daily and part of the Gülen organization. As such it is currently in opposition to the Turkish president Erdogan and some of his policies. So take this with a grain of salt:

During the meetings between Turkish officials and Barzani in Ankara, Barzani spoke on the 150 ISIL militants of Turkish origin who had been captured by Kurdish peshmerga forces during clashes with ISIL. According to sources, Barzani said some ISIL members captured by the peshmerga had identified themselves as members of MİT and he requested that MİT head Fidan clarify the issue.

Barzani also sought assistance from Ankara to remove 500 Turkish nationals in Mosul who are in leading positions in ISIL.

The MIT is the Turkish secret service. It is certainly not the only spy organization whicht has infiltrated the Islamic State. But as Turkey has been the rear base and travel route for the Islamic State and its members the MIT is likely the service with the biggest contingent.

How any spies and/or operators does it have within the Islamic State structures? Even more important – how influential are these within the Islamic State hierarchies?

The Kurdish organizations within Turkey believe that the two big Islamic State attacks on mostly Kurdish rallies, in Suruc and in Ankara, were intended to support Erdogan's reelection. Influential MIT agents within the Islamic State would have been be part of such conspiracies.

The latest piece by Seymour Hersh, just out, also touches on the Turkey – Islamic State cooperation:

[By January 2014] American intelligence had accumulated intercept and human intelligence demonstrating that the Erdoğan government had been supporting Jabhat al-Nusra for years, and was now doing the same for Islamic State. ‘We can handle the Saudis,’ the adviser said. ‘We can handle the Muslim Brotherhood. You can argue that the whole balance in the Middle East is based on a form of mutually assured destruction between Israel and the rest of the Middle East, and Turkey can disrupt the balance – which is Erdoğan’s dream. We told him we wanted him to shut down the pipeline of foreign jihadists flowing into Turkey. But he is dreaming big – of restoring the Ottoman Empire – and he did not realise the extent to which he could be successful in this.’

Posted by b on December 20, 2015 at 13:13 UTC | Permalink

Comments

@Yonatan@92
The claim is the guy was insignificant to the war effort – just like the pilot of the Su-24 shot down by Turkey. I’m sure the Hezbollah supporters regard his death as significant as the Russian do the death of the SU-24 pilot.
There is the notion that Russia has given Israel some ‘coupons’ to use for such actions presumably with some promises by Israel as quid pro quo. The contrast between the handling of one ISIS-supporting state like Turkey and another like Israel is stark. I guess Russia is happy for Israel to go along committing extra-judicial murder to protect its boys in the Golan as long as Russians are not involved.
There is also a coy reference to a ‘certain taboo’ in the past. Israel claims Kuntar shot a girl in the head – so presumably this is the ‘taboo’. Kuntar claimed the girl was killed in cross-fire.
What is known is that more recently an IDF officer shot a Gazan schoolgirl then walked up to her body and emptied the magazine of his gun into her. That resulted in a minor reprimand in Israel (presumably for wasting ammuntion) and certainly does not constitute breaking a taboo.
ISIS-supporting Israel seems to get a free pass even there.
Thanks for the link, your comments right on target. Fuck whoever made that comment in the Russian forum. Who are they to start classifying people as disposable or “insignificant” for the war effort? That’s sheer bigotry. We know the zio-nazi statelet is made of lies, it was born out of a lie and survives out of perpetually lying. Whatever happened in that military operation is for historians to find out, but first, they have to debunk ISrael’s pack of lies. If Russia allowed the assassination of Quntar to happen, the Russian coalition is not a 4+1 with Hezbollah the 1, but the zio-nazi clowns.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Dec 21 2015 19:21 utc | 101

WHAT DOES GENERAL FLYNN KNOW THAT OBAMA DOES NOT?
Two quotes explain the total collapse of the Obama Administration’s Syria policy.

Moscow’s Five-Star Treatment of a Three-Star Army General – Cliff Kincaid for Accuracy in Media
Flynn’s participation in the RT anniversary celebration raises questions about what the DIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies know, or think they know, about the Russian role in global conflict and RT’s role in propaganda and disinformation.

Military to Military: US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war – Seymour M. Hersh in LRB
Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The jihadists, he said, were in control of the opposition. Turkey wasn’t doing enough to stop the smuggling of foreign fighters and weapons across the border. ‘If the American public saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic,’ Flynn told me. ‘We understood Isis’s long-term strategy and its campaign plans, and we also discussed the fact that Turkey was looking the other way when it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria.’ The DIA’s reporting, he said, ‘got enormous pushback’ from the Obama administration. ‘I felt that they did not want to hear the truth.’

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Dec 21 2015 20:03 utc | 102

@ 101 Lone Wolf
I must say: I agree with every word of you

Posted by: From The Hague | Dec 21 2015 20:24 utc | 103

Noirette @95
I believe Seymour Hersh is very reliable.
Someone mentioned that Hersh had shown that the Ghouta attacks were a false flag attack. I disagree. I believe it was me and my coworkers at ACLOS and CIWCL that showed the attack be a false flag.
I was disappointed when the Hersh article on the attacks (Whose sarin?) came out as he did not reference our work. But then I realized that did not investigate the attack. He had not even spoken to any investigator, nor had he read any investigation. Hersh is a reporter, not an investigator. He only reports what his reliable inside sources tell him.
If new information comes out, it is because someone wants it to come out. In this sense he is a limited hangout.
Jackrabbit already criticized the article. Hersh is part of the Western mainstream so his reporting reflects Western mainstream narrative.

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Dec 21 2015 22:59 utc | 104

@Lysander #13
Good analysis. My only quibble might be that you’re overestimating the US ability to orchestrate its assets in KSA, Turkey, and Israel. Of course the US constantly overestimates its ability to do such. The Unholy Four have interests roughly aligned in the same quadrant but not fully aligned. The US wants a compliant, pro-western regime that can keep those pesky Shiites in line, help destroy Hezbollah, and isolate Iran. Israel wants to dismember Syria to gain a free hand in Lebanon and southern Syria, with Hezbollah high on their list. KSA wants a region-wide war of Sunnis and Shia with the eventual destruction of Iran. They also rely on Islamist campaigns outside their borders to keep the lid on the conflict within their borders. Erdogan wants to restore the Ottoman Empire through Iraq and Syria. The Ottoman Empire used to include the Persian Gulf region, so I guess that issue between Turkey and the gulf states is tabled to take up at a future date. Other than the goal of destroying independent Syria, there’s not much basis for an alliance. When one of the powers, such as Turkey, starts acting upon its own agenda, there can be trouble in the ranks.
Turkey will be the fall guy even though KSA and Qatar are equally guilty of subverting the US, largely because KSA and Qatar have more leverage to gain indulgence from the US. Turkey is important for logistic reasons but is not as integral as the gulf states are to western hegemony. Also, it is less favorable ground in any confrontation between the hegemonic powers and Russia or Iran.

Posted by: Thirdeye | Dec 22 2015 3:33 utc | 105

78 & 79, But the IMF has broken its rules not to lend while an intergov loan is outstanding.

Posted by: Penelope | Dec 22 2015 7:24 utc | 106

Noirette @ 94, You’re right: Most definitely the sarin attack was at least partially fabricated.
—
Bob @ 77, Good post. It’s nice to know that others are reading. There’s a limit to what you can learn from just the news & commentary. Here’s a great video of the part played by US oligarchs (like Bush’s father) in supporting the German’s during WWII: http://www.monsangelorum.net/?p=23505 You have to scroll down a bit to get to it.

Posted by: Penelope | Dec 22 2015 7:32 utc | 107

@ 106 Penelope
You are right.
I messed up two decisions.
The first decision still stands, indeed.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) made two important decisions recently. First, the IMF issued a new policy that allows the IMF, in certain circumstances, to provide financing to a country even when it has outstanding arrears to official bilateral creditors. Second, the IMF ruled that Ukrainian bonds purchased by the Russian government to help the Yanukovych government is bilateral intergovernmental debt.
http://voxukraine.org/2015/12/21/imf-ukraine-and-russia-a-love-triangle-en/

Posted by: From The Hague | Dec 22 2015 13:12 utc | 108

I think it’s clear that Russia can’t be fully trusted by Iran. I think that like with USA, Israel is regarded the highest in the region by the Russian

Posted by: Refocus | Dec 22 2015 18:31 utc | 109

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