Hafriyat reveals with documents Turkey’s efforts to revive ISIS

karim shafik

Based on the reality of this faction (meaning the Syrian Democratic Forces “SDF”) and what it does; its fighting belongs to Jihad for the sake of God, and these people have sedition in their religion and world. There is no difference between them and the fighting of the Syrian regime, because they are its allies and achieves what the enemies of God want to happen in Syria, from dividing and eliminating the revolution, and they claim that in their Jihad a protecting for the country and people. With these clear statements, the Syrian Islamic Council issued a “religious fatwa”, during the implementation of the Turkish President, “Recep Tayyip Erdogan”, his military threat east of the Euphrates, Syria, in the process known as the “Nabea AlSalam”.
In the fatwa issued by the Istanbul-based Syrian Islamic Council, which was established in 2014, it describes the Turkish forces and the elements loyal to them as “Mujahideen”, and also affirms that there is no “legal barrier to cooperate with the Turkish government in fighting criminals, because of the general interest of the Syrian revolution.

Erdogan and the myths of violence
It is not the first time that Ankara uses the religion as an ideological weapon to provide a justifiable cover for its political and military attitudes. Rather, it transcends it to employ the various groups of political Islam, as is the case in the “Euphrates Shield” and “Olive Branch” operations. The prayers were repeated through the preachers in the mosques against the Kurds in Turkey, and the imams recited in the prayers “Surat Al-Fath”.
However, the last military operation, which erupted on October 9th, coincided with the invitation of “ISIS” leader “Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi” two weeks earlier, through Telegram, specifically on September 16th, therefore, Its members demanded that the fighters and their families be rescued, as he put it, held in Kurdish prisons and camps, and vowed revenge, as stated in the audio recording.
“Hafreyat” monitors in this investigation the consequences of what happened after the last military operation carried out by Turkey, on October 9th, through field testimonies, as the situation in northern Syria worsened, especially among civilians, with the displacement of nearly 300 thousand citizens, among them 70 thousand children, as profound changes started by the factions that spread and gained control in the areas under their influence, and it relates to matters of local identity culture, and It relates to matters of local identity and culture, the demolition of the social structure of the region, and the targeting of different nationalities in it, through aggressive practices and means that do not take into account the religious and ethnic diversity between Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs and Circassians, as well as between Christians, Yezidis and Muslims, with their varying sects and creeds, but rather stir up strife and fanaticism.
These practices went beyond displacement and confiscation of property and money, to impose new and different life features, and to spread hate speech against the Kurds, in particular, according to many local testimonies, their owners faced a direct harm, financially and morally.

The return of ISIS .. how and why?
The majority of these changes were dominated by numerous attempts to impose a strict and radical Islamic pattern. So, religious associations of a Jihadi ancestral nature were launched, as well as religious schools which target children at an early age, in order to convey extremist idea to them, claiming that they memorize them the “Holy Quran” and the Arabic language, as well as imposing the veil on women, calling for prayers, and forcing Yezidis women to convert the Islam, not to mention the demolition of religious shrines, burning churches, and other related matters.
The main question and hypothesis in the investigation was focused on whether those practices that the pro-Ankara forces deliberate and come into contact with facts and events previously carried out by “ISIS” elements are purely spontaneous or motivated by religious and national nervousness, or whether they have a specific reference and necessity, and related to the organization Somehow the terrorist?
The testimonies and documents obtained by “Hafriyat” reveal an organic link and a direct link between former members and leaders of “ISIS”, who have been resurrected and revived within the factions under the so-called the “Syrian National Army”, supported by Turkey, since its foundation in 2017. Added to that, the Turkish government was involved in their reintegration, after training and military preparation, in one of the camps on the Turkish-Syrian border, especially after their defeat in the Battle of “Al-Baghouz”.

Religious militia .. black flags
“Ammar” (a pseudonym), who is in his third decade, did not while recording his testimony to confirm on the emergence of Islamic features similar to the actions of ISIS members in Afrin, as he says, where many incidents took place in several areas. Such as, “Rajwa”, “Mabatli”, which are controlled by “Al-hmzah” militia, a faction of the “National Army”, supported by Ankara. And it has some small legions, such as “Muhammad Al-Fateh” and “Army of Glory”, and all of them have a strict Islamic nature, in the northwest of Afrin. As they prevent women from leaving without wearing the headscarf and legal clothing, according to its terms, and that’s what happened with his sister and his wife. As well as inviting men to pray through their members scattered in the streets, while threatening them to implement penalties for those who violate their instructions.
As what happened in the town of “Sheikh Al-Hadid”, where many families were forced to hide in their homes, according to the thirty-year young man, during prayer times, especially non-Muslims. The numbers of these are not few, for fear of being insulted or beaten.
He adds to “Hafriyat”: “Militias spread extremist religious propaganda and promote their extremist ideas every Friday during the sermon, across the main town square. Attendees are restricted through their intermediaries, who report absenteeism, and all those who fail to come are held accountable and punished, which they describe as “legal rule”, on the following day, as the mosques became an arena for racist propaganda and incitement against the people of the region with a strong hatred.
He pointed out that it is forbidden to raise the call to prayer by the imam of the Kurdish mosque, since the Turkish presence, while another is appointed to invite people to pray or sermon, or to announce their own activities, which are carried out by these factions in the mosque, only in Arabic, although the majority of the elderly are Kurds they do not understand the Arabic language.

Unfortunate children … War bill
“The Turkish occupation, since its presence in our regions, changes everything, he says, by targeting the region’s culture and local language”. However, he indicates in his testimony that there is another phenomenon that relates to the parents ’necessity not to send their children to schools, and the students themselves refraining from pursuing their studies. Such as his brother, who is less than 11 years old, was subjected to racial discrimination, insult and beatings by his peers in school, following what the Turkish army has done through its allied factions, from changing educational curricula, imposing the Turkish language instead of Kurdish, expelling Kurdish teachers, and assigning other settlers to their place.
He adds: “My younger brother’s school turned into a military headquarters for the Turkish forces, while another school was opened. And when my brother joined it, he started being subjected to some harassment from his colleagues, which resulted into beating at one time by settler Arab children, as a result of racist calls that teachers themselves pass them among the students, and incite them against each other, which would not have happened before between the Arabs and the Kurds, and the national strife would not emergence.
Therefore, my father was forced to prevent my brother from completing his education in order to avoid problems, according to the same source, which confirms that; despite the lack of statistics on this matter, Kurdish families and their children in Afrin and the areas under the control of the Turks and settlers, suffer from the forced drop-out of their children from education. This threatens their educational future, and also indicates that teachers are paid in Turkish lira.
In his testimony of “Hafriyat”, he confirmed the Kurdish journalist and Yazidi human rights activist
Ali Esau, that there are many documented aggressive practices against the Yezidis, which relate to forcing them to veil, and imposing Islam on them, in addition to demolishing their temples and religious shrines.
He adds: “The Yazidi religious sanctuaries were either deliberately destroyed by the Turkish army militants, or they were stolen and vandalized, and some of them were converted to security and military headquarters, as we documented at the (Izdina) Foundation, where the number of Yazid shrines in Afrin exceeds 25 sanctuaries, and shrines. And in March 2018, a group of armed men burned a tree in the village of “Kafr Janneeh” in Afrin, which is located in front of a religious shrine sacred to the Yezidis after its demolition, called (Mazar Hooker), while the militants mocked the tree and religious traditions. And the same thing happened in “Sheikh Junaid” shrine, in the village of “Fagira”, where the militants completely destroyed it, exhumed the grave and stole its contents.

Yazidis are threatened again
The occupiers of Afrin deliberately insult the Yezidis, describing them as the ugliest traits, and consider them “infidels”, Esau says, thus sharing with ISIS the same penitential ideology that rejects the other.
Before the occupation of Afrin, the Yezidis practiced their religious rites completely freely, but the occupation imposed on them a strict Islamic life, and it amounted to compelling the Yezidis to convert to Islam.
According to the Izdina Foundation, a local human rights organization concerned with minority issues, specializing in Yazidi religion, and monitoring violations associated with them, judicial courts under the military authority were established, and were represented in what is known as the “National Army” of Ankara in Afrin, after the control of the Turkish forces. These modernized courts are based on justifying their existence to the “unified Arab law”, which closes on Islamic jurisprudence and doctrine, and defines it as the only source of judicial rulings. The law provides for penalties such as retribution and execution for those who meet the conditions of “apostasy,” cutting off the thief’s hand, whipping a drinker, as well as other penalties, which are inconsistent with human rights principles in the world, which these courts consider to be “contrary to God’s law.”
For its part, Kurdish activist “Rukin Saeed” confirms that women were forced to wear the legal dress that “ISIS” had imposed on them in the cities they controlled in Syria and Iraq, and the Yezidis in Afrin, in particular, were forced to convert to Islam. And that their religious temples and shrines were destroyed, their contents were stolen, graves were blown up, and antiquities were looted.
The names of the Kurdish villages have also been changed to another with Turkish names, even the names of the civilian Kurds in the ID cards have been changed, or rather forged, according to what “Saaed” told “Hafriyat”, Just as it happened with a woman called “Kurdistan Hassan”, where her name was changed to “Kulistan”, in addition to the appearance of her image on the new ID card while she was wearing the veil, although she was not wearing it in the photo on the original ID card.

Blurring identity and removing privacy
She adds in her testimony to “Hafriyat” that Kurdistan is not an exceptional case, where the local council in Afrin, which was formed through the Turkish government, changed the ID cards of the Syrians with another in the areas of the Turkish army control and the factions loyal to him, in order to suit his desire In the incursion and the imposition of his influence and control, the completion of the scheme of demographic change, and the abolition of cultural privacy in the region, while the series of violations committed.
Among the villages and cities whose names have been changed are “Qastal Miqdad”, which has been replaced by “Seljuk Obasi”, and “Kutana”, and the last has changed to “Zavir Obasi”, the Kurdish activist explains.
The Kurdish researcher at the Washington Institute, “Baz Ali Bakkari”, notes that the “Justice and Development Party”, which is ruling in Turkey, targeted the culture of the region under its control, to impose a completely different model, by inaugurating many religious bodies, charities, and advocacy centers, with the aim of spreading his radical Islamic ideas and promoting his policies in the region. The party also established an orphan care center, which he called “Tunzel Erdogan”, which is the name of the mother of the Turkish president, in the town of “Maryamin”, in the Afrin region, north of Aleppo.
He explained to “Hafriyat” that “the center is supported by the two charities” the Euphrates “and” Anda “, which are sponsored by Ankara. And halls were allocated for children’s games, and teaching them to read and write, in both Arabic and Turkish languages, in addition to the origins and principles of the Islamic religion, in its version “Ottoman Turkish”.

Turkmen Belt
Turkey has included the axes of religion and education in its plans, according to “Ali”, in order to enhance its goals in converting regions under its control to be Turkish, through its allied armed factions especially in the northwestern region of Afrin, which is subjected to a broad demographic change process, where the “Justice And development Party” tends to cultivate his strict Islamic ideas in the minds of the people of Afrin, after seizing the homes of nearly 300 thousand people, they were forced to move from the area.
According to the same source, Turkey has distributed a number of textbooks to nearly 360,000 students in the areas it controlled, in the framework of the “Euphrates Shield” and “Olive Branch” operations, in northern Syria, and in each of the cities of “Afrin” “Jarablus”, “Al-Bab”, and “Azaz”. It has also recently begun projects to establish Turkish universities for the Syrians, with the aim of deepening the Turkic operations.

The Turkish Invasion in East Euphrates: A New Balance for ISIS
What is known as the “Syrian National Army”, which is loyal to Turkey, in the north and east of Syria, consists of a Jihadist backgrounds, according to the Kurdish writer and researcher, “Badrakhan Ali”. Among them, many brigades and militia take names such as: “Jaysh Alislam”, “Faylak Alsham”, “Ahfad Alrasol”, “Jaysh Almojahdin”, “Liwa Altawheed”, in addition to Turkman factions, founded and funded with a direct Turkish support, and named after Ottoman Sultans or Turkish leaders who have a prominent position in the Turkish consciousness, such as: “Sultan Murad Brigade”, “Nur al-Din al-Zenki movement”, where the last is considered as a Jihadist and Salafi organization, on one hand, and a Turkoman ethnic, on the other hand, as it includes members from the remnants of the defeated ISIS through new names.
“Badrakhan” Ali confirms to “Hafriyat” that “ISIS members who were in “Jarablus” joined this army after the Turkish army occupied “Jarablus”, without a single shot, as well as ISIS operatives in “Tal Abyad” and “Manbij”, who fled to Turkey during the liberation of these areas from “ISIS”, by the “Syrian Democratic Forces”, was recruited from refugee camps in Turkey, under the supervision of the Turkish army and intelligence in Ankara.
It is difficult to find separating lines between these groups, whose elements put the Turkish flag on all its security and military headquarters, and their military uniforms, but they all meet on the goal of loyalty to Turkey, and hostility to the Kurds as a nationalist, and the Syrian Democratic Forces, as a military force, according to “Bakari”, after fighting terrorism of “ISIS”, “Al Qaeda”, and “Al-Ekhwan”, and this is sufficient for their Turkish authority.
According to a local activist who documents Turkish violations in Afrin (who preferred not to be named), Turkey is working to create a Turkmen belt, as he described, in the areas bordering the Syrian-Turkish border, in order to resettle the Turkmen displaced from the rural areas of “Homs” and “Lattakia” in Afrin region and northeastern Syria.
He reveals to “Hafriyat” that “the Turkish intelligence intends by the Turkman Council to include Turkman members to its local militia in Syria, which named after the Ottoman Sultans, including: “Al-hamza militia”. “sultan Murad”, “sultan Mohamed Al-fateh”,” Sultan Abdul-Hamid brigade’, and “the Sultan Suleiman brigade Shah”, and all fall under the banner of what is known as the “Syrian National Army”, with the aim of building entities that make the required social, cultural and demographic change.
For its part, For its part, Turkmen religious societies open advocacy centers and bodies, with the aim of disseminating extremist ideas among the people, but the majority of the leaders of these centers are settlers from the “Homs” and “Damascus” countryside, and the rest of the other areas; where families send their children to them, in order to receive religious lessons. These centers especially attract children; distribute gifts to them, while spreading racist and extremist ideas.

Containing extremism
According to the same source, these armed groups have established religious institutes, such as the “Al-Fateh Al-Mubeen” Institute, and opened the “Pasha Karaga” School, in the center of Afrin, which is a branch of the most famous and well-known Turkish religious school. Many important political and religious figures were graduated from this university, among them is the Turkish President himself. However, “Afrin” lost its national identity after this steady domination and new transformations, and the armed factions called one of the military courses “Ertugrul Cubs”.
Regarding the violations against the local people and imposing religious rituals on them, the Eastern Liberation Militia, whose members are mostly from the countryside of “Deir Ezzor”, forced shops owners to close their stores on Friday and go to prayer, according to “Mustafa Abdi”, director of the Violations Documentation Center in North And eastern Syria.
“Abdi” says to “Hafriyat” that “as for wearing the veil, Islamic militia launched calls for wearing it through religious societies. Large portraits were also placed on the main roads, which were rejected by the local people. Beatings, insults, and attacks on women who did not wear the hijab repeated, and after attempts to impose it by force and intimidation appeared. The majority of women and girls began to wear the hijab or Islamic dress, under the conditions specified by those factions, for fear of being subjected to violence and harassment by Islamic militias”.
The homes and shops of the local population have also been converted into places of worship by armed militias after their displacement from them and the confiscation of their property, as is the case in the village of “Katameh”, a Yazidi majority; where one of the shops was converted to a mosque attached to it with a religious charity, as well as in the Yazid village of “Basovan”, where they converted one of the other houses to a mosque. And there is a third case documented by the center, as the house of an Armenian displaced person from Afrin was converted to a mosque.
The center explains that these areas are either Yazidi majority, or these areas have no Muslims at all. Which express the intention to forcibly resettle Arabic and Muslim members in it, in light of the demographic change process, and targeting the region’s cultural diversity and differentiation.
“Hafriyat” obtained names and special information related to leaders and members in “ISIS”, whose names and organizational levels vary. Some of them are “Intrusive” and others are “suicidal”, while others are still in the prisons of the “SDF”, and after the defeat of the organization in the battle of “Al-Baghouz”, they joined the factions of the “Syrian National Army”, which is loyal to Turkey, and the militias under it.

Safe havens for takfiris
The available information verified by “Hafriyat” indicates that most of these members crossed into Syria and joined ISIS, through “Jarablus” border, between Syria and Turkey, which is considered one of the strategic foundations used by jihadist groups. In this border region, Ankara provided safe havens for military training and preparation after the defeat of “ISIS”, while it appears that the majority of those previously enrolled in ISIS are now the strength of “Al-Hamza” Battalion, one of the brigades that fall under what is known as the “National Army”.
ISIS controlled “Jarablus” cross in “Aleppo” since five years, through which the militant groups moved and were able to smuggle weapons.
The name “Abu Muhammad al-Shamali”, one of the leaders of “ISIS”, appeared in those documents repeatedly, who was killed in “Deir al-Zour” two years ago, where he was able to transfer new arrivals to the organization through the city of “Ghazi Aintab” in Turkey, passing through the city of “Jarabulus”, adjacent to the Syrian-Turkish border, Which remained under the control of the organization until 2016, after its liberation from them in the Battle of the Euphrates Shield.
In a recorded interview, the spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Mustafa Bali, told “Hafriyat” about the presence of members of “ISIS” within Turkish allied factions: “we have complete documents, names, photos, and confessions, related to hundreds of terrorists who were in positions of leadership of “ISIS”, between 2014 and 2015, during the liberation of “Tal Abead” and “Ras Al-ein”, and the areas extending in that distance, where they flied to Turkey and came back with the Turkish invasion, with the same old qualities, while enjoying new positions in the ranks of the so-called “National Army”.
He adds: the Turkish army bombed a prison in which a large group of jihadists affiliated with ISIS remained, during its recent military operation, which is an enormous group of the most dangerous elements. They were arrested during fighting with “SDF”, at the same time they were in camps in Iraq and Syria, in the areas controlled by the Kurdish forces, which their numbers estimated at tens of thousands, including women, children, and members of entire families of ISIS fighters, some of whom are Syrian, others are foreigners. In addition to a basic group being held, in “Al-Hul” camp, in “Hasaka” countryside in northern Syria, where fighters of various nationalities live.

Turkey admits .. Turkey elusives
According to the words of the former American envoy to the United States of America, at the international coalition against “ISIS”, “Brett McGurk”, he revealed a relationship between the Turkish state and “ISIS”, as he tweeted through his official account “Twitter”, that he held several meetings with Turkey, with the aim to close its borders to “ISIS”, but the Turkish government has not closed its borders. According to the data of the Turkish Ministry of Justice, in 2015, the number of terrorists in Turkey’s prisons was about 2850 terrorists. And the investigation was opened only against 41 terrorists. In 2016, about 4605 were arrested, on the pretext of suspected links with ISIS, and only 513 were imprisoned. Then, only 7 of them were sentenced, and the rest were released.
The same thing appears in the official data of the Turkish Ministry of Justice, in year 2019; during the military operation known as the “Nabea Al-salam”, Turkish security arrested about 4,517 people, and their fate has not been decided yet, or the results of their investigations have been disclosed.
It is clear from the official data that Turkey arrested 466 members of “ISIS”, in the period between 2015 and 2019, while only a few dozen were imprisoned.
For its part, the website “Nordic Monitor”, which specializes in investigative investigations, revealed that a large number of terrorists who were arrested, between January 2014 and July of the same year, were not included in the official records of courts “The Justice and Development Party”, while they were released.
In an interview recorded by “Hafriyat” the official of the media office of “AL-Hamzah” militia who is loyal to Ankara, “Majed Halabi”, denied that there were members of “ISIS” within its ranks, whether regular or commanding elements.
Asked about the presence of names lf “ISIS” members in his military battalion, some of which were leaked by local international and human rights bodies, “Halabi” replied: “certainly, there is no members of “ISIS” within our ranks, and there is a military body empowered to follow any military matter with the factions, and those suspicions are investigated in If they exist. There is also an internal system governing the factions that make up the strength of the “National Army”, where the suspicious member is sent to the military police, to follow up on the case and investigate it”.
Just as the media office official rejected the accusation that “ISIS” operatives were among their ranks, he also denied that any of their members participated in aggressive violations against the sects, nationalities, and doctrines in Syria. On the other hand, he refused, more than once, to condemn the incidents taking place against Christians and their churches, especially the killing of a Christian cleric and the bombing of his church, as it happened that the murder of “Father Ibrahim Hanna Bidou”, head of the Armenian Catholic community, in the east of the Euphrates, an hour before registration with him.

ISIS “safe houses” in Turkey
For his part, “Basil Turgeman”, a Tunisian researcher specialized in issues of extremism and terrorism, points out that “Areas under Ankara control and influence in the north and east of Syria, have become geographically save for ISIS and Takfiri and Jihadi groups. As the killing of “Abo Baker Al-Baghdadi” in “Al-Barisha” village in Idleb, which is controlled by allied factions to Ankara, exposed that there is a link between the two parties and that part of ensuring the safety and protection of “Al-Baghdadi” was in these areas where there is a large Turkish security and military presence.
The killing of “Al-Baghdadi” reveals, according to the Tunisian reasercher, that the Turkish party was completely absent from the preparation and the intelligence work and implementation of the operation that was carried out in cooperation with “SDF”, Iraqi intelligence, and other Arab parties; Because doubts were circulating about the continuation of relations between Turkey and “ISIS”, after the elimination of the strongholds of the organization in northern Syria, and the same thing was repeated with the disposal of “Al-Baghdadi”’s deputy in the same process, in another place in the border region of “Jarabulus” between Turkey and Syria, specifically, in the village of “Ein Al-Beda”.
He adds to “Hafriyat”: “at the beginning it is necessary to recall the Turkish role in the Syrian crisis, where Ankara was the main path for all terrorists, who moved to the Syrian territory from Arab and Europeans capitals. In addition to that it was the main path for all arms shipments that entered to them. Therefore, talking about the Turkish role and its relationship to the terrorist groups that have spread in Syria, with its various names and references, confirms that it is a deep relationship and an intellectual and ideological link.
Regarding the crimes committed by the Turkish army, and the groups allied to it; they are, according to “Tarjuman”, ethnic cleansing operations, and war crimes against civilians in the areas adjacent to the border with Turkey, as they aim to change the demographic situation, and reject and remove the Kurds by all criminal means from their geographical and historical extensions.
The Tunisian researcher points out that “the Syrian National Army” consists mainly of radical Islamic groups, some of whom belonged to “Al Ekwan Al-muslimin”, others joined the “Nusra Front” and “ISIS”, and among them soldiers who fled from the “Free Syrian Army”. Therefore their practices and crimes are identical to those groups and organizations, while they appear to be repeating the same method of horrific crimes carried out by jihadist currents. ”
And he confirms that facing the Kurdish presence, which is one of the components of Syrian society, according to the political mind of Ankara, requires “making a takfiri force”. Therefore, what is known as “safe houses”, in which the members of “ISIS” live in, were founded in southern Turkey in particular. It was also established in the Waziristan region, located in the north of “Pakistan”, “ISIS” training camps, before being sent to Syria, after a period of military training and preparation.

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