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Captured ISIS fighter details Islamic State’s Turkey connection
Al-Monitor was unable to independently confirm either the man’s identity or the circumstances of his captivity. Al-Monitor’s request to interview the jihadist, who is being held by the YPG in Syria, was rejected on security grounds. Yet much of what Peri describes, including a newly formed all-Turkish IS unit called “Saiful Islam,” aligns with some of Al-Monitor’s own findings.
Peri is a 25-year-old university dropout from Adiyaman, a predominantly Kurdish province in southeast Turkey, where Islamic fraternities have long held sway and sympathy for IS is said to be on the rise. He says he first rubbed shoulders with the jihadists in between stints working at a bakery in Gungoren, a low-income district on the European side of Istanbul. Many of them congregated at a “masjid,” a prayer hall, above the bakery.
“I met a person called Ibrahim Osama. … He told me things and I listened,” Peri said. “He had … a peculiar way of dressing — like he grew a beard, wore cargo pants and grew his hair. His appearance was what we would call the Islamic State type.” His indoctrination began with Osama recommending a number of religious texts to Peri. They included books written by ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Peri says he was “surprised” when he learned that Osama was a member of IS “because there is a significant discord between them and the Muslim Brotherhood.” IS views the Brotherhood as “takfiris,” or apostates. Osama invited Peri to join IS. By September, Peri had agreed.
On a recent afternoon, Al-Monitor went to Gungoren to investigate Peri’s claims. The first stop was a local real estate agent called Huseyin Demir, a Kurd with a reputation for having his ear to the ground. Demir confirmed that Gungoren was “full of Syrians,” saying, “They mostly live in basements or ground floors. I stopped doing business with them because I couldn’t tell what their backgrounds were,” he told Al-Monitor. Had he seen any jihadist types around? Demir said he had seen a group of some 30 young men who “looked like jihadists” rush past his office the day before.
“I couldn’t tell why they were running or who they were,” Demir said. “There has been a fresh influx of Syrians since the YPG moved onto Tell Abyad.” Jogging jihadists? What about the masjid and the bakery? Demir hadn’t heard of either. But there was a place “where IS types used to gather.”
Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2015/06/captured-isis-fighter-details-islamic.html
