A report prepared by a delegation from Turkey’s Republic Peoples Party (CHP) conveys striking details on how ISIL runs it recruiting operations in Adıyaman, Turkey. Notably the province was home to two culprits of separate bomb attacks that struck Turkey, recently. Report BGN

The CHP delegation had headed to the province last week to investigate the Islamic States of Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIL) recruiting operations. Adıyaman-based individuals had conducted two attacks, the first being the June 5 bombing of a Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) election rally in Diyarbakır, southeast Turkey, which killed three and injured hundreds, and a suicide bomb blast in July that killed over 30 activists.

In their report from the visit – which featured interviews with the June 5 bomber from prison, his parents, local prosecutors, police officials, chambers, friends and relatives of youths who joined the group –  the CHP underlines lack of security measures, inadequate police response. Furthermore the town and its cafes have turned into a hotbed of recruitment for ISIL. The most revelation was the relative ease by which recruits are able to cross over to Syria, and repeat the journey several times back and forth including the use of ambulances.

The report highlights that the ISIL recruits come from poor families. Celal Dikmen of the Human Rights Association stated that ISIL pays USD 5,000 upon recruitment and subsequently USD 1,200 – USD 1,300 on a regular basis.

Furthermore the high unemployment rate of the province has crowded the tea houses which have become hotbeds for ISIL recruitment. Meetings with families in the province have revealed that the tea house named “Islam Café” was a key recruitment hub, where ISIL propaganda is easy to come by. Notably the establishment is run by the suicide bomber of the Suruç attack Şeyh Abdurrahman Alagöz’s older brother. ISIL’s message is also able to spread quickly in high-schools and prep-schools through students socializing with one another.

An imam stated that in two mosques he had also witnessed ISIL recruiters openly calling on individuals to join in jihad, and that the imams of the mosques “were turning a blind eye to what was transpiring”.  He claimed to also have overhead another imam telling a family who were complaining about the situation, “Mind your own business, the state sent them over here, and they will be gone soon.”

The ISIL recruits were also noted to expand their sphere of influence to include their parents. The potential recruits are being subjected to watching violent videos and in turn having their families watch them as well.  The youth who have joined ISIL were noted to be trying to pressure their parents to sell vehicles and other personal belongings such as bracelets stating that they will take the income to those who are going to fight for the cause.

The youth are frequently able to repeatedly go back and forth between Adıyaman and Syria. Another claim voiced by the families is that ambulances bringing in wounded fighters from Syria into Turkey, were being used to smuggle recruits to the other direction. However the National Police has not taken any type of action against these individuals. “Due to the fact that ISIL is not officially listed as a terror group we are not able to engage individuals” reportedly said one police official.

An individual acquainted with someone who had headed off to Syria noted that he had filed two separate notices with Prime Ministry’s Communication Center (BİMER) in September 2013 without his request being put into process soon enough.

The story was similar for the parents of Orhan G. who is in jail for carrying out the June 5 bombing in Diyarbakır, during an election rally held by the Pro-Kurdish HDP.  His mother stated “six months before he disappeared on 13 October 2014 we had gone to the police. There were six others who went with Orhan. We went to the border regions for eight months. We handed their pictures to governor and the district governor and filed missing notices at the prosecutor’s office at least ten times.”

She continued “the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) provincial assembly vice president merely told us that ‘I gave orders to the National Intelligence Agency regarding your son’. When the police notified us that they had our boy I went to Gaziantep province at 3:00am. They told us that our son had conducted the bomb attack. When we spoke to him he cried and was constantly saying that he did not do it.”

In his interview with the CHP delegation Orhan G. proclaimed he was innocent and was a victim of the police. “They (the police) raided the motel I had been staying in for two days. They placed a bag above my head beat me and threatened me. They told me I should take advantage of the ‘Guilty Plea’ and would at most serve two years. They told me that if I accepted they would help me. I said that I had gone to the rally because I was Kurdish and wanted to show support. They vacated the entire area saying they were going to conduct a search. I left and went to the barber shop. I only learned about the blast half an hour later.