Confidential Documents Expose Turkey’s Role in ISIS Smuggling Operations via Greece

The documents show that Turkey’s intelligence agency, Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı (MIT), was aware of senior ISIS leader Barzan Hasan Ibrahim Albo-Badri’s activities within Turkey, where he coordinated the group’s smuggling operations.

Albo-Badri, a cousin of the late ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, moved from Iraq to Turkey, where he obtained refugee identity documents that allowed him to operate freely. Despite an outstanding Turkish arrest warrant, he continued to direct smuggling operations, including deploying ISIS operatives to Greece. The network used Greece as a transit point for ISIS members travelling to Europe.

Two additional ISIS operatives, Usame Elubeydi and Abdulcabbar Abdulhadi Shallal Al-Shawi, were also documented as refugees in Turkey, where they organised smuggling routes. Both men moved to Greece while under surveillance by Turkish intelligence. Elubeydi was later implicated in a terrorist attack on Istanbul’s Santa Maria Church in January 2024 but managed to evade Turkish authorities during subsequent investigations.

Critics have accused Turkey of being lenient towards jihadist networks, citing a policy of allowing foreign terrorist fighters to leave the country rather than prosecuting them. This approach has enabled thousands of militants to join extremist groups across Europe and the Middle East, raising security concerns for neighbouring countries and the international community.

Source » greekcitytimes.com