America’s allies in Syria accuse Turkey of giving Islamic State terrorists a safe zone
America’s allies in the Middle East have lauded the Biden administration for the brazen U.S. special forces raid in northern Syria last week that saw the top leader of ISIS “taken off the battlefield.”
But as leaders and experts warn that ISIS is trying to rebuild, and that decapitating the group won’t cripple it for long, there are mounting allegations that a vital U.S. ally in the region is actually giving ISIS room to breathe.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the umbrella rebel group of mainly Kurdish fighters that the U.S. relied on for years to lead the ground war against ISIS in Syria, says Turkey — a NATO member on the edge of the alliance’s geographic border with the Mideast — is allowing ISIS a “safe zone” in northern Syria.
The death of the second top ISIS commander in three years in a home very close to Turkey’s border is presenting some awkward questions for the U.S. and its NATO partners.
Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi blew up himself and members of his family as elite U.S. forces moved in last week, the Pentagon said. He was holed up in a house in Atmeh, a Syrian town less than two miles from the Turkish border.
It was a remarkably similar operation, with an identical outcome, to the 2019 U.S. raid that left ISIS’ previous leader dead. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a house southwest of Atmeh, less than three miles from Turkish soil.
“Many Daesh [ISIS] and al Qaeda leaders are still alive, protected by Turkey in occupied areas of northeast and northwest Syria,” the head of the SDF’s media and information office, Farhad Shami, told CBS News the day after al-Qurayshi was killed. “He was protected between three Turkish military bases. … Is there any doubt that Turkey turned areas of northern Syria into a safe zone for Daesh [ISIS] leaders?”
Turkey’s Defense Ministry did not reply to a CBS News request for comment on the allegations, but a security source in the country dismissed the SDF claim as “utterly ridiculous,” saying Turkey has been targeted by ISIS many times in the past and that Turkish forces continue to fight against the group.
ISIS has been blamed for several major attacks inside Turkey, including a devastating New Year’s Eve siege on a popular Istanbul nightclub in 2017 that the group itself claimed responsibility for. That attack alone left 39 people dead and Turkish officials say, in total, ISIS has killed 315 civilians in the country.
There has never been any love lost between Syria’s SDF rebels and Turkey.
Turkish leaders have long considered the SDF terrorists — an extension of armed Kurdish separatist groups based in southern Turkey.
The chaotic, decade-old civil war in Syria has given the Turks cover to launch military operations across their border, going after Kurdish fighters on Syrian soil. It has made the NATO member a sometimes difficult ally for the U.S., given the heavy American reliance on the SDF.
Source: CBS News
