Dec 5, 2013

Will Turkey’s cutting off logistical support to al-Qaeda in Syria, and discriminating between al-Qaeda-affiliated organizations and moderate groups under the Free Syrian Army banner, be enough to extricate the country from the Syrian morass? Reports leaked from the Turkish National Intelligence Service and other security agencies are instilling fears of a boomerang effect in Turkey, which is trying to give the impression that it has intensified border security. Illegal activities by armed groups who, until September, appeared to be enjoying impunity, are now finding their way to police and judicial records, indicating there may be some changes.

Some revelations and confessions are causing confusion regarding what Turkey is trying to achieve. For example, on Nov. 8 Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the seizure of a truckload of ammunition as "showing Turkey’s sensitivity," and therefore an indication of Turkey’s anti-al-Qaeda operations. But the police were hoping to find narcotics in the truck, not guns, since they had received a tip on narcotics smuggling. If the tip had been related to weapons, perhaps the truck would not have been stopped. We gather this much from the court statement of L.K. the truck driver.

Weapons delivery under gendarmerie supervision

According to court documents presented to parliament on Nov. 26 by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party, the truck driver L.K. told the court: “Twice before, I delivered cargo to Reyhanli. The place of delivery was an enclosure guarded by the gendarmerie outpost. I had to go through the gendarmerie check before driving in, but they didn’t check the truck. They only spoke to people in the car that were escorting my truck. Then I unloaded my cargo at an enclosure 200 meters from the outpost.” Based on security reports, the court declared that the destination of the mortar ammunition was an al-Qaeda camp and arrested the suspects on charges of “supplying weapons to a terror organization.”

Syrian national Haisam Topalca was earlier implicated in the car-bomb attack in Reyhanli. When he wasn’t called in, even as a witness, claims surfaced that he was working for intelligence services. The latest information on the mysterious Topalca suggests that he was kidnapped in the Latakia region of Syria or had gone underground. According to court records, Topalca had procured 20,000 ammunition rounds from Konya in October.