Alwaght- Thousands of ISIS associates have been regularly crossing into Syria from Turkey soil helped by contacts in Turkey, opposition MP Erem Erdem revealed.
Ilhami Bali's Phone calls tapped by Ankara security shows lack of control along the Syrian Turkish border. Bali is allegedly the ISIS group's leader in Turkey's southeastern province of Gaziantep and is suspected of staging sophisticated bomb attacks in Ankara and the mainly-Kurdish border city of Suruc, RT reported.
Turkey- Syria 98-kilometer stretch of border has only two crossings, the Jarablus and Al Rai entry points across from Turkey’s Gaziantep and Kilis.
Pressured by the international community to impose stricter border controls to stem the flood of terrorists into Syria, Ankara has been erecting walls at key crossing points, but to no avail as surveillance data from the Municipality of Ankara Provincial Security Department revealed.
Transcribed phone recordings belonging to Ilhami Bali have been passed on to the media by Turkish opposition politician, Eren Erdem of the Republican People's Party (CHP), who has repeatedly accused Erdogan's governments of massive cover-up of ISIS activities on Turkish soil.
While daily logs by the Turkish Armed Forces reveal that Turkish security forces apprehended 961 ISIS terrorists from 57 countries in 2015, the alleged reality exposed by the Erdem leak, show that thousands of ISIS terrorists and their family members cross the Turkish border from Syria on a daily basis. But even those who get arrested on the Turkish side are often released at the crossing points.
For instance several documents suggest that ISIS coordinators helped some 1,400 people cross the Turkish border from September 22 – October 17. In one of the phone conversations, Ilhami Bali asked his interlocutor named, Erkek, who according to the conversations helps smuggle people, the exact number of persons he has helped cross the border.
As the men argue about the actual number of all those who entered and left Turkey, the conversation reveals that the actual count of people passing through to the Turkish side is actually more than ISIS coordinators have presumed.
Another conversations between the two subjects revealed Bali was extremely dissatisfied with Erkek’s performance as he failed to help ISIS operatives cross the border.
"Did you get our people through?” Bali asked Erkek, who replied that he was not the one guiding the group in question.
"What? Are you the one who is responsible that they got arrested? Don’t lie to me! Don't lie to me. Eighteen people crossed the border last night. Fifteen of them got arrested when you tried to help them,” Bali said.
"Listen to me, I have warned you,” added Bali, losing his temper. “If I ever hear that you try to pass our guys through, I will come in your house and shoot you to your head. I will shoot your head while you’re in bed.”
However, as other conversations have shown, ISIS operatives and contacts on the Turkish side of the border help those ISIS affiliates detained by Turkish security forces to evade justice.
"One brother, two sisters and one child were arrested while they tried to cross [at Kilis]. How could this happen? I do not understand,” wondered Erkek in another phone call.
"We have called and gave them the information,” Bali replied. “We talked to the brother who will
More conversations between the two subjects further confirm that those who get arrested are later released through ISIS connections at police stations.
"The guy from the Gendarmerie called me and said that they were in the smuggler car,” Bali told Erkek in a conversation about another group detained at the border. “Call this guy. The people who got arrested today are at the Gandermarie station. Maybe he can do something… Gendarmerie took them under arrest. If they can let them free they should do that."
Bali’s conversation with another ISIS operative, Mustafa Demir, offers apparent proof that the ISIS terror group is smuggling its fighters into Turkey for medical treatment.
"You know this Abu Abdella Garip who gets out the wounded people? Now Ali Mantara will come. He will bring a brother. He will call you when he arrives... Take the numbers and send them to the administration [of the crossing]. So the administration will look after them,” Mustafa Demir tells Bali.
"Where should I bring Abdullah Garip who helps cross the wounded ones? Should I take him to madrasa?” Bali asked.
"Send them to madrasa and call Ebu Abdallah and tell him that five persons are with Garip Geli... tell him that he should write down their names... So we can control how many left from here,” Demir replies.
In another conversation Erkek asks Bali what “one wounded person” should do when he comes to Turkey.
"I don't really know. It has nothing to do with us,” Bali replied. “Tell them they should go to the border to the administration there.”
