Gulen-Linked Economy Archives

A senior Western official claimed that information gathered at the compound of Abu Sayyaf, the individual responsible for oil smuggling operations on behalf of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who was killed in a US commando operation a few months ago, points to high-level contacts between Turkish officials and leading ISIL members, the Guardian newspaper in the UK has recently reported.

While they had given voice to some resentment and mild criticism of Turkey‘s much-questioned approach against ISIL, until very recently, Western officials had refrained from directly criticizing Turkish decision makers. The recent revelation appears to be the first public criticism of Turkey’s approach and could complicate Ankara’s relations with its Western allies.

Turkey, which entered the fray against ISIL after two years of reluctance to take an active part in the international coalition against the militant group, had faced charges of ignoring, if not openly facilitating, militants’ border crossings to join ISIL in Syria. Ankara’s refutations of such accusations seemingly fall short of convincing its Western allies, and the Guardian report will likely fuel underlying questions about ISIL’s links with Turkey.

“In the wake of the raid that killed Abu Sayyaf, suspicions of an undeclared alliance have hardened,” the Guardian report said.

One senior Western official familiar with the intelligence found at the compound told the Guardian that “direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking Isis [ISIL] members was now ‘undeniable.’”

The Guardian report continues: “’There are hundreds of flash drives and documents that were seized there,’ the official told the Observer. ‘They are being analyzed at the moment, but the links are already so clear that they could end up having profound policy implications for the relationship between us and Ankara.’”

With Turkey now striking ISIL targets in Syria after a bomb attack suspected to have been carried out by a militant killed 32 in the southern Turkish town of Suruç near the Syrian border and the killing of a soldier on the border, Ankara may have earned loud praise and strong support among its Western allies.

But questions and charges of tacit cooperation with the militant group over the past two years will, especially after the discovery of new information at Abu Sayyaf’s compound, overshadow today’s efforts and haunt Ankara’s ties with the West in years to come.

t’s been a while since I checked in with Danny Davis, but it’s time. Report tbfurman

I know people like him. I like him. But there’s a little trend in the data that helps you see the Gulen connections in bas-relief, so here you go.

First of all, Danny Davis went on the trip to Azerbaijan that’s being investigated by the House Ethics Office. Davis’s portion of the trip was paid for by one of the local Gulen-linked shell organizations (one with a fondness for Alderman Joe Moore), but the trip was basically designed and implemented by a former Niagara guy, who’s probably in some serious trouble for it, as I wrote about here.

In a nutshell, the Gulen Movement in America was basically acting as the lobbyists for the thuggish, mafia-like Azerbaijani government, and the net result was that some American sanctions against Iran were loopholed in Azerbaijan’s favor. It’s all about keeping the gas flowing out of Azerbaijan and from underneath the Caspian Sea.

So there’s that.

But let’s drill into Danny Davis’s campaign contributions for a bit. Look here, at 2014. There are eight $2,500 contributions from the local Gulen-linked group, and the names will start to look familiar. In short, Danny Davis not only got the junket, and amusingly, the rug….

Davis said in May that he might donate the rug to a cultural group

but he also got $20k in scratch from these Gulen-linked organizations that have been created with the revenue the charter schools throw off. It’s a little taxpayer-funded private economy.

Check it out. Each one of these guys gave Danny Davis the personal limit ($2,500):

And who are they?

1. Ismail Abay. Describes himself as an employee at one of the CMSA search-warrant targets.

2. Orhan Cerci. Describes himself as an accountant at one of the Concept-generated businesses. I wrote about it at length.

3. Osman Ozemir. Describes himself as a manager at one of the junket-providing foundations, which are really just one big thing.

4. Kairatbek Mavlyankulov. Describes himself as the CFO of the management company affiliated with a number of Concept schools, including CMSA.

5. Eldar Kafarov. Describes himself as a business manager at the same Concept management company.

6. Ayhan Caputlu. He’s with Concept.

7. Ekrum Cavus. He describes himself as the CEO of the same furniture business as the others, the Concept-generated business.

8. Salim Ucan. Concept’s VP.

So, the House Ethics Committee can factor all that in as well. It wasn’t just a junket; it wasn’t just a rug. It was this $20k as well.

I really like this particular set of contributions because it’s got all the elements: the sketchy foundations, the charter schools, the CMO, the charter school supply firm, the links to international schemes.

Remember, these guys aren’t getting rich, at least as far as I can tell. They’re doing okay, but nobody’s getting rich. The charter schools are the engine; they bring in the cash and a lot of the guys on visas. The money these schools throw off funds businesses that serve the charter schools. An economy grows, and it funds these foundations, and these foundations work the lawmakers. And all of it is in service to the Movement’s agenda, which is pretty much a mystery to the average American. The agenda has to do with the centrality of Turkey and the Turkish language in modern Islam, the “Islamification of modernity,” and repaying a debt to the people who brought Islam to Turkey. That’s a simplification, of course. There are scholarly books on the subject. However, I think it’s important to note that the agenda is also political in nature; clearly the Gulen Movement is still involved in a power struggle inside Turkey, one in which the antagonists have behaved very, very poorly.

None of the Movement’s agenda is alarming to me; it simply is what it is. I only write about it because it’s funded by our charter schools, and not in a transparent way by any stretch of the imagination. And that closed economy growing up around the schools? That money used to circulate more widely: a lot of it now stays inside the walls of the Gulen-linked economy until it winds up in the pockets of our lawmakers.

Research by Sharon Higgins

Report: Seized USB drives reveal Turkey’s links to ISIL

Checking In With Danny Davis and The Turkish Imam Gulen-Linked Economy