Report: ISIL using ammunition produced by Turkey

Terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants fighting against Kurdish forces in Iraq have been using ammunition marked as coming from the Turkish Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation (MKE), according to the Taraf daily.

Taraf reported on Tuesday that the MKE-marked ammunition was found out after a recent fight between the ISIL militants and the Kurdish forces in Arbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq.

According to the report, the US experts who examined the ammunition were surprised to see the MKE mark on the ISIL ammunition. Following this discovery, US officials have begun to investigate how this ammunition ended up in the hands of ISIL militants.

The daily also claimed that the MKE-marked ammunition has caused problems for Turkey on international platforms such as at last week’s NATO summit in Wales and that Turkey was forced to defend its activities.

US President Barack Obama warned President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that Turkey’s policies in the Middle East must be aligned with NATO and the US when the two met for an extensive talk on the sidelines of the NATO summit, according to Taraf.

Warning Erdoğan about Turkey’s current alignment, Obama reportedly told Erdoğan, “We would like to see you on the same page as NATO and the US.” Throughout the Erdoğan-Obama meeting, the Turkish delegation tried to defend Turkey’s position but at the end of the NATO summit, Turkey reluctantly joined the coalition against ISIL, the Taraf report claimed.

While US security experts have been trying to track down the source of the ammunition which was found on dead ISIL militants, the US military has launched airstrikes against ISIL targets. At the same time, several bombing attacks were launched in Arbil by ISIL militants and US experts have discovered that the bombs which were used in the Arbil attacks were also MKE-marked. In addition, some of the ISIL members who were involved in the bombing attacks were killed during clashes with the Kurdish forces were found to be carrying MKE-marked ammunition. According to Taraf, it’s not clear how the ammunition ended up in the hands of ISIL militants. The report speculated that it could be theft or smuggling or that the arms allegedly sent to Syrian opposition forces by Turkey somehow found their way to ISIL.

Taraf said that US officials are working on preparing a file on the ISIL issue which will be shared with Turkey later on.

Turkey has been pushing for the fall of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2011, initially predicting that the fall of the Assad regime would come in a short time. Despite this expectation not having been met, the government has failed to adjust its policies accordingly.

Furthermore, many foreign officials and Western media have started to voice concerns over Turkey’s alleged support of al-Qaeda splinter group ISIL and the al-Nusra Front. According to some press reports, Turkey allegedly sent a number of trucks carrying aid and possibly military equipment to the radical groups.

Western press outlets have also been reporting stories suggesting that Turkey has turned a blind eye to the foreign fighters who cross the Turkey-Syria border to join ISIL. Ankara categorically denies these claims.

The Obama administration has been working on building a coalition against the ISIL threat in the region for sometime. The US pushed for a 10-nation core-coalition against ISIL during the NATO summit in Wales. The coalition — which includes Turkey — will fight ISIL militarily and financially. Turkey is a reluctant partner in the coalition due to its critical hostage situation, as ISIL still holds 49 people who were kidnapped from Turkey’s Mosul Consulate General in June.