Turkish-backed Syrian rebels sold arms to ISIS
Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces were
caught selling arms to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), prompting a
wave of resignations in the Turkish military that protested the delivery of
arms to the FSA, Nordic Monitor has learned.
According to secret documents seen by Nordic
Monitor, the officers operating in Syria as part of Turkish Military Special
Forces Command (Özel Kuvvetler Komutanlığı, or ÖKK) units discovered
that FSA fighters sold arms provided by Turkey to ISIS in January 2017. The
scandalous revelation prompted some 50 officers to offer their resignations
from the military. The officers protested the sale and questioned the training
and arming of FSA fighters while they were cozying up to ISIS and providing
them with material support.
Alarmed by the fallout from the incident, the
General Staff intervened, and Lt. Gen. Zekai Aksakallı, the then-commander of
the Turkish Special Forces, threatened officers who wanted to resign with
negative repercussions. He managed to contain the scandal and hushed it up
while preventing the officers’ resignation, which could have been an
embarrassment for the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Aksakallı was a key officer who worked with Turkish
intelligence agency MIT during a failed coup on July 15, 2016 in coordinating
events that many believe was a false flag operation to benefit the Erdoğan
government. Thousands of officers including generals and admirals have been
purged from the Turkish military since 2016, and most of them were jailed on
dubious charges. Using the incident as a pretext, the president removed
officers who had shown resistance to military incursions into Syria and were
opposed to the arming of radical rebels recruited by MIT. Aksakallı was
appointed commander of the Second Army in August 2017.
In a rush to prevent resignations in the event the
threats failed to work, the Erdoğan
government even issued executive decree No. 681 under a then-ongoing state of
emergency amending Personnel Law No. 926 of the Turkish Armed Forces, which was
originally passed by parliament on July 27, 1967. The decree, issued on
February 1, 2017, extended the compulsory service period for officers and
noncommissioned officers from 10 to 15 years. As a result officers who wanted
to leave the military were forced to stay under the new amendment.
The Erdoğan
government was found to be aiding and abetting armed jihadist groups in Syria
including al-Qaeda and ISIS, providing arms and material supplies and
facilitating the passage of Turkish and foreign fighters to and from Syria. MIT
has been working with some ISIS groups in Syria and Turkey, negotiating with
ISIS leaders for the delivery of logistical supplies to ISIS-held territories
in Syria. The officers in the Turkish military who opposed MIT’s clandestine
activities with ISIS and other jihadist groups were either purged or jailed in
Turkey.
In August 2016 Turkey sent tanks across the border
for what the Erdoğan government claimed
to be an operation to help Syrian rebels drive ISIS from the border city of
Jarabulus. The incursion, called Operation Euphrates Shield, was terminated in
March 2017 after Turkish troops and rebels took control of Al Bab. The ÖKK
officers who wanted to resign highlighted the cynicism on the part of the
government in their draft resignation letters, stating that while they were
fighting against ISIS, Turkish-backed rebels were selling their arms to ISIS.
