(ISIL) marching in Raqqa, Syria. (Photo:AP)
Turkey recently changing its stance regarding the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), adopting more aggressive policies, has led the ISIL leadership to consider an offensive against Turkey, a news agency has reported, claiming that 100 ISIL militants have already entered the country to offer training to sleeper cells.
In a plan approved by ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, 100 militants were assigned to give military training to ISIL members and sympathizers in Turkey, the news agency Sputnik Türkiye reported on Tuesday.
According to the agency’s “reliable sources in Syria,” ISIL will use members in Turkey to carry out attacks in various cities if current policies are maintained by Turkey, which only two months ago took an offensive stance against the group by participating in air strikes with an international coalition, authorizing it to use important airbases.
The transfer of militants through the border provinces of Kilis and Gaziantep was executed with “great secrecy,” the report stated, adding that nine ISIL emirs (commanders) accompanied the militants as the terrorist group’s structure requires one emir for every 12 militants.
After crossing Turkey’s border from Syria in groups, 100 militants scattered to Adana, Adıyaman, Ankara, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep, İstanbul, İzmir, Kilis, Konya and Şanlıurfa. The militants were instructed to avoid unnecessary communication by phone. In addition to arms training, ISIL members and sympathizers in Turkey will also be taught to make bombs.
Sputnik Türkiye also claimed the group traveled with military equipment, including Kalashnikov rifles, Bixi machine guns, pistols with silencers, binoculars, rocket launchers, grenades, mines and explosives. The report also states that some members bought weapons from smugglers in Kilis.
The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) administration had long been criticized for allegedly turning a blind eye to the passage of foreign fighters, many coming from European countries, to war-torn Syria with the intention of joining ISIL. Ignoring warnings from many experts that a lack of border security might one day cause Turkey trouble, the AK Party government long maintained its policy of neglecting necessary precautions at its borders.
When Turkey was shocked by a bomb attack in the southeastern border town of Suruç on July 20, the AK Party changed its stance regarding ISIL, which was held responsible for the attack that killed 34 civilians on their way to reconstruct a city that had been ravaged by the terrorist group.
Within a week after the Suruç bombing, Turkey agreed to grant the US expanded access to the İncirlik Air Base, located in the southeastern province of Adana, close to Syria. By late August, Turkey had also joined air strikes on important ISIL targets, conducted by a US-led coalition, in which it had previously declined to participate.
Source: Zaman