Turkey struggles as ‘gatekeeper’ against Islamic State recruitment

Border has been seen as major transit point

ISTANBUL/BEIRUT, Aug 26, (RTRS): As Islamic State insurgents threaten the Turkish border from Syria, Turkey is struggling to staunch the flow of foreign jihadists to the militant group, having not so long ago allowed free access to those who would join its neighbour’s civil war.

Thousands of foreign fighters from countries including Turkey, Britain, parts of Europe and the United States are believed to have joined the Islamist militants in their self-proclaimed caliphate, carved out of eastern Syria and western Iraq, accord- ing to diplomats and Turkish officials.

The militants, who seized an air base in northeast Syria on Sunday as they surge northwards, are trying to secure control of the area bordering Turkey above the city of Raqqa, their major stronghold, in a bid to further ease the passage of foreign fighters and supplies, sources close to Islamic State said.

Some of the foreign fighters in their midst reached Syria via Turkey, entering the region on flights to Istanbul or Turkey’s Mediterranean resorts, their Western passports giving them cover among the millions of tourists arriving each month in one of the world’s most visited countries.

From Turkey, crossing the 900 km (560-mile) frontier into northern Syria was long relatively straightforward, as the Turkish authorities maintained an open border policy in the early stages of the Syrian uprising to allow refugees out and support to the moderate Syrian opposition in.

That policy now appears to have been a miscalculation and has drawn accusations, strongly denied by the Turkish government, that it has supported militant Islamists, inadvertently or otherwise, in its enthusiasm to help Syrian rebels topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The rapid and brutal advance of Islamic State, bent on establishing a hub of jihadism in the centre of the Arab world and on Turkey’s southern fringe, has alarmed Ankara and its Western allies, forcing them to step up intelligence sharing and tighten security cooperation.

“Thousands of Europeans have entered Turkey en route to Syria, and a large number of them we believe have joined extremist groups,” said one European diplomat in Ankara, describing Turkey as a “top security priority” for the EU.

“In recent months especially we’ve seen a real hardening in Turkey’s attitude, a recognition that this is a potential threat to their national security and a desire to take more practical steps through intelligence channels, police channels,” the diplomat said, declining to be named so as to speak more freely.

That cooperation includes tighter screening of passengers on flights into Turkey in collaboration with European Union member states, and the beefing up of border patrols on the frontier with Syria, the diplomat and other officials said.

Turkey already kept a “noentry” list of thousands of people suspected of seeking to join “extremists in Syria” based on information from foreign intelligence agencies, a Turkish official said, and barred more than 4,000 people from entering the country last year alone as a result.