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Turkey’s leaders see Kobani as opportunity, not threat

October 8, 2014

Turkey’s leaders see Kobani as opportunity, not threat, al Monitor, Amberin Zaman, October 7, 2014

A protester throws stones at an armoured army vehicle during a pro-Kurdish demonstration, near the Mursitpinar border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border, in SurucA protester throws stones at a Turkish armored vehicle during a pro-Kurdish demonstration in solidarity with the people of Kobani, near the Mursitpinar border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border, Oct. 7, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Umit Bektas)

The fall of Kobani would deal a severe blow to Kurdish independence hopes and bolster Turkey’s political goals.

The town has emerged as a symbol of Kurdish resistance.

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As Islamic State (IS) fighters keep up their battle to gain control over Kobani, a strategic Syrian Kurdish-controlled enclave on Turkey’s border, the effects of the conflict are being felt in Turkey itself. Thousands of Kurds took to the streets across the country on Oct. 7 to protest Turkey’s inaction against IS’ seemingly unstoppable advance. In the southeastern town of Varto, the government slapped curfews on six provinces in the mainly Kurdish southeast region after clashes between protestors and the security forces, and between rival Kurdish groups, left at least 14 people dead. Elsewhere across the country, police clashed with demonstrators, trying to push them back with pressurized water and pepper spray while the Kurds responded with Molotov cocktails in a foretaste of the violence that is likely to engulf the country should Kobani fall.

None of this comes as a surprise. Many Kurds continue to believe that Turkey is complicit in the jihadists’ onslaught against Kobani. Cemil Bayik, one of the top commanders of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), repeated this claim in a Sept. 25 interview with Al-Monitor. Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, is threatening to call off peace talks with the Ankara government should there be a massacre in the enclave. Turkey denies it is siding with IS.

But it is doing little to aid the Kurds. This in turn invites the question of whether Turkey sees the Kurds as a greater threat than the jihadists, who stand to grab their third border crossing with Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to suggest that IS and the PKK were equally dangerous. “It is wrong to view them differently, we need to deal to them jointly,” he told reporters Oct. 3 in Istanbul. Erdogan’s comments hold the key to understanding Turkey’s policy on Kobani.

Turkey’s inaction over Kobani is undermining the peace process. Erdogan’s hopes of winning Kurdish support for constitutional amendments that would boost his presidential powers hang on friendship with the Kurds. A breakdown of the PKK’s 18-month-long cease-fire would likely jeopardize his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) chances in nationwide parliamentary elections scheduled for June. None of this appears to faze the Ankara government. This is because Erdogan and his AKP disciples view Kobani as an opportunity rather than a threat.

The opportunity ought to be to win the hearts and minds of Turkey’s Kurds by riding to the rescue of their brethren in Syria. Instead, Erdogan has chosen to exploit Kobani’s imminent fall to wrest maximum concessions from assorted Kurdish leaders. This was amply on display during last week’s secret meeting in Ankara between Salih Muslim, the co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and senior Turkish officials from the Foreign Ministry and the national intelligence agency, MIT. Muslim reportedly beseeched the officials to allow the passage of arms and, most crucially, anti-tank weapons through the Mursitpinar border crossing with Kobani to enable Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighters to fend off IS. Turkey said it would do so only if the PYD severed all its ties with the Syrian regime, joined the rebels, dissolved the PYD-dominated local governments running the enclaves, shared power with rival Syrian Kurdish parties and distanced itself from the PKK.

Muslim seems to have offered conflicting versions of what transpired, telling Al Jazeera that “agreement was reached in a number of areas” and the BBC that Turkey “did not keep its promises.” He has not responded to Al-Monitor’s repeated requests for comment. Either way, it’s hard to imagine that he yielded to Turkey’s demands or that he even has the authority to do so, because Ocalan and the PKK leadership in the Kandil Mountains call the final shots.

Turkey to its credit has offered sanctuary to more than 100,000 refugees from Kobani, and it is letting wounded YPG fighters in for treatment in hospitals. But Turkey would probably be happy to see Kobani fall. The town has emerged as a symbol of Kurdish resistance. It hosted Ocalan when he used to live in Syria under the patronage of the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. Kobani also has huge strategic significance. It lies between a swath of uninterrupted Kurdish-controlled towns and villages to the east collectively known as the canton of Jazeera and the Kurdish-administered town of Afrin to the southwest. The Kurds have long wanted to link the three by pushing out IS and other Syrian rebels from the areas separating them. The prospect of a Kurdish entity run by the PKK is more than Turkey, and especially its generals, can stomach.

Kobani’s fall would deal a humiliating blow to the PKK and weaken its support among Syria’s Kurds. It would also force Muslim and the PYD to patch up their differences with Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, who claims to be the “true leader” of all the Kurds. Although Barzani has spoken in defense of Kobani, he has yet to reproach Turkey over its stance.

Meanwhile, the PKK’s threats to resume its war sound like bluster to Turkish ears. Aaron Stein, a security analyst, told Al-Monitor, “The Turkish government is banking on the fact that the PKK can ill afford to open a second front against Turkey when it is battling IS in Iraq and in Syria.” Not only that, Ocalan would be loath to condemn himself to political irrelevance and spend the rest of his days rotting in prison. No matter how bitter, Kobani is a pill the Kurds will be forced to swallow. Ocalan will be forced to continue the peace talks, the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy party (HDP) will play along and the PKK will hold its fire. This, anyway, seems to be Ankara’s thinking.

But it is fraught with risk.

The new generation of Kurds, as Bayik warned in his interview with Al-Monitor, is so radicalized that even the PKK finds it hard to keep them in line. Should Ocalan be perceived as capitulating to Turkey, he would lose his grip over them, too.

It was the fear of a PKK-dominated Kurdish statelet in Syria that propelled Turkey to resume peace talks with Ocalan in 2012 in the hope that he would keep the Syrian Kurds’ aspirations in check. The plan doesn’t seem to have worked. “The peace process began because of Syria’s Kurds,” recalls Arzu Yilmaz, a scholar of Kurdish affairs at Ankara University. “And it is because of them that it will unravel,” she concludes.

Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated since its initial publication.

 

 

Categories: Islamic State, Kurds, Syria, Turkey
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U.S. officials: ISIS will capture Kobani, but it’s not a big concern to us

October 8, 2014

U.S. officials: ISIS will capture Kobani, but it’s not a big concern to us, CNN, Holly Yan and Elise Labott, October 8, 2014

(Please see video at the link. Turkey is not interested in helping the Kurds in Kobani, including the Kurdish fighters who are getting overwhelmed. Is keeping Turkey happy part of the Obama Administration war “strategy?”– DM)

As Time.com put it, “If the ISIS militants take control of Kobani, they will have a huge strategic corridor along the Turkish border, linking with the terrorist group’s positions in Aleppo to the west and Raqqa to the east.”

And Staffan de Mistura, U.N. special envoy for Syria, warned of the horrors ISIS could carry out against the people of Kobani — horrors it has carried out elsewhere. “The international community needs to defend them,” he said. “The international community cannot sustain another city falling under ISIS.”

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The key Syrian border city of Kobani will soon fall to the Islamist terror group ISIS, several senior U.S. administration officials said.

They downplayed the importance of it, saying Kobani is not a major U.S. concern.

But a look at the city shows why it would mark an important strategic victory for the Islamic mlitant group. ISIS would control a complete swath of land between its self-declared capital of Raqqa, Syria, and Turkey — a stretch of more than 100 kilometers (62 miles).

As Time.com put it, “If the ISIS militants take control of Kobani, they will have a huge strategic corridor along the Turkish border, linking with the terrorist group’s positions in Aleppo to the west and Raqqa to the east.”

And Staffan de Mistura, U.N. special envoy for Syria, warned of the horrors ISIS could carry out against the people of Kobani — horrors it has carried out elsewhere. “The international community needs to defend them,” he said. “The international community cannot sustain another city falling under ISIS.”

Coalition batters ISIS positions with airstrikes

A U.S.-led coalition has been pounding ISIS positions in the region with airstrikes for a few weeks.

The latest strikes, late Tuesday into Wednesday, included nine in Syria, the U.S. military said. Six were in the Kobani area, destroying an ISIS armored personnel carrier, four armed vehicles and two artillery pieces, U.S. Central Command said. U.S. and coalition forces also conducted five airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, the military said.

The primary goal of the aerial campaign is not to save Syrian cities and towns, the U.S. officials said. Rather, the aim is to go after ISIS’ senior leadership, oil refineries and other infrastructure that would curb the terror group’s ability to operate — particularly in Iraq.

Saving Iraq is a more strategic goal for several reasons, the officials said. First, the United States has a relationship with the Iraqi government. By contrast, the Obama administration wants Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

Another reason: The United States has partners on the ground in Iraq, including Iraqi forces and Kurdish fighters known as Peshmerga.

Local fighters apparently made some headway Wednesday morning, when some ISIS militants in Kobani were pushed back to the city’s perimeter, Kurdish official Idriss Nassan said.

The battles have been bloody. More than 400 people have been killed in the fight for Kobani since mid-September, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The opposition group said it has documented the deaths of 219 ISIS jihadists, 163 members of the Kurdish militia and 20 civilians.

Kobani mapMap: Kobani (Ayn al-Arab)

U.S. plan against ISIS: Iraq first, then Syria

The United States’ goal is to first beat back ISIS in Iraq, then eliminate some of its leadership and resources in Syria, the U.S. administration officials said.

If all goes as planned, by the time officials turn their attention to Syria, some of the Syrian opposition will be trained well enough to tackle ISIS in earnest.

Washington has been making efforts to arm and train moderate Syrian opposition forces who are locked in a fight against both ISIS and the al-Assad regime.

Training Syrian rebels could take quite a long time.

“It could take years, actually,” retired Gen. John Allen said last week. “Expectations need to be managed.”

The United States also wants Turkey to do more, the officials said. The administration is urging Turkey to at least fire artillery at ISIS targets across the border.

But the Turkish reluctance, the officials say, is wrapped up in the complex relationship with their own Kurds and the idea that they don’t want to help any of the Kurds in any way.

Hundreds of strikes, millions of dollars

The United States and its allies have made at least 271 airstrikes in Iraq and 116 in Syria.

The cost? More than $62 million for just the munitions alone.

The effect? Negligible, some say, particularly in Iraq.

One by one, the cities have fallen to ISIS like dominoes: Hit, Albu Aytha, Kubaisya, Saqlawia and Sejal.

And standing on the western outskirts of Baghdad, ISIS is now within sight.

“That’s DAIISH right over there,” said Iraqi Brig. Gen. Ali Abdel Hussain Kazim, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.

The militants’ proximity to the capital is cause for concern. If the terror group manages to infiltrate and launch attacks in Baghdad or its green zone, the results could be disastrous.

Kazim said ISIS has not been able to move from eastern Anbar province to Baghdad. But another brigadier general said that’s not even the biggest threat.

The real danger to the Iraqi capital, Brig. Gen. Mohamed al-Askari said, is from ISIS sympathizers in the city.

“They are a gang,” he said. “They deploy among civilians. They disappear into the civilian population and camouflage themselves.”

Categories: Iraq, Islamic State, Kurdish fighters, Obama, Syria, Turkey
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Col. Ralph Peters: Massacre Looms in Kobane Thanks to Obama Cowardice

October 7, 2014

Col. Ralph Peters: Massacre Looms in Kobane Thanks to Obama Cowardice, You Tube, October 6, 2014

(Don’t worry. They are just Kurds and our ally Turkey does not like them. — DM)

 

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Turkey, the Kurds and Iraq: The Prize and Peril of Kirkuk

October 7, 2014

Turkey, the Kurds and Iraq: The Prize and Peril of Kirkuk, Stratfor, Reva Bhalla, October 7, 2014

Turkey cannot be comfortable with the idea that Kirkuk is in the hands of the Iraqi Kurds unless Ankara is assured exclusive rights over that energy [oil] and the ability to extinguish any oil-fueled ambitions of Kurdish independence.

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In June 1919, aboard an Allied warship en route to Paris, sat Damat Ferid Pasha, the Grand Vizier of a crumbling Ottoman Empire. The elderly statesman, donning an iconic red fez and boasting an impeccably groomed mustache, held in his hands a memorandum that he was to present to the Allied powers at the Quai d’Orsay. The negotiations on postwar reparations started five months earlier, but the Ottoman delegation was prepared to make the most of its tardy invitation to the talks. As he journeyed across the Mediterranean that summer toward the French shore, Damat Ferid mentally rehearsed the list of demands he would make to the Allied powers during his last-ditch effort to hold the empire together.

He began with a message, not of reproach, but of inculpability: “Gentlemen, I should not be bold enough to come before this High Assembly if I thought that the Ottoman people had incurred any responsibility in the war that has ravaged Europe and Asia with fire and sword.” His speech was followed by an even more defiant memorandum, denouncing any attempt to redistribute Ottoman land to the Kurds, Greeks and Armenians, asserting: “In Asia, the Turkish lands are bounded on the south by the provinces of Mosul and Diyarbakir, as well as a part of Aleppo as far as the Mediterranean.” When Damat Ferid’s demands were presented in Paris, the Allies were in awe of the gall displayed by the Ottoman delegation. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George regarded the presentation as a “good joke,” while U.S. President Woodrow Wilson said he had never seen anything more “stupid.” They flatly rejected Damat Ferid’s apparently misguided appeal — declaring that the Turks were unfit to rule over other races, regardless of their common Muslim identity — and told him and his delegation to leave. The Western powers then proceeded, through their own bickering, to divide the post-Ottoman spoils.

Under far different circumstances today, Ankara is again boldly appealing to the West to follow its lead in shaping policy in Turkey’s volatile Muslim backyard. And again, Western powers are looking at Turkey with incredulity, waiting for Ankara to assume responsibility for the region by tackling the immediate threat of the Islamic State with whatever resources necessary, rather than pursuing a seemingly reckless strategy of toppling the Syrian government. Turkey’s behavior can be perplexing and frustrating to Western leaders, but the country’s combination of reticence in action and audacity in rhetoric can be traced back to many of the same issues that confronted Istanbul in 1919, beginning with the struggle over the territory of Mosul.

The Turkish Fight for Mosul

Under the Ottoman Empire, the Mosul vilayet stretched from Zakho in southeastern Anatolia down along the Tigris River through Dohuk, Arbil, Alqosh, Kirkuk, Tuz Khormato and Sulaimaniyah before butting up against the western slopes of the Zagros Mountains, which shape the border with Iran. This stretch of land, bridging the dry Arab steppes and the fertile mountain valleys in Iraqi Kurdistan, has been a locus of violence long before the Islamic State arrived. The area has been home to an evolving mix of Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, Yazidis, Assyro-Chaldeans and Jews, while Turkish and Persian factions and the occasional Western power, whether operating under a flag or a corporate logo, continue to work in vain to eke out a demographic makeup that suits their interests.

mosul-vilayet

At the time of the British negotiation with the Ottomans over the fate of the Mosul region, British officers touring the area wrote extensively about the ubiquity of the Turkish language, noting that “Turkish is spoken all along the high road in all localities of any importance.” This fact formed part of Turkey’s argument that the land should remain under Turkish sovereignty. Even after the 1923 signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, in which Turkey renounced its rights to Ottoman lands, the Turkish government still held out a claim to the Mosul region, fearful that the Brits would use Kurdish separatism to further weaken the Turkish state. Invoking the popular Wilsonian principle of self-determination, the Turkish government asserted to the League of Nations that most of the Kurds and Arabs inhabiting the area preferred to be part of Turkey anyway. The British countered by asserting that their interviews with locals revealed a prevailing preference to become part of the new British-ruled Kingdom of Iraq.

The Turks, in no shape to bargain with London and mired in a deep internal debate over whether Turkey should forego these lands and focus instead on the benefits of a downsized republic, lost the argument and were forced to renounce their claims to the Mosul territory in 1925. As far as the Brits and the French were concerned, the largely Kurdish territory would serve as a vital buffer space to prevent the Turks from eventually extending their reach from Asia Minor to territories in Mesopotamia, Syria and Armenia. But the fear of Turkish expansion was not the only factor informing the European strategy to keep northern Iraq out of Turkish hands.

The Oil Factor

Since the days of Herodotus and Nebuchadnezzar, there have been stories of eternal flames arising from the earth of Baba Gurgur near the town of Kirkuk. German explorer and cartographer Carsten Niebuhr wrote in the 18th century: “A place called Baba Gurgur is above all remarkable because the earth is so hot that eggs and meat can be boiled here.” The flames were in fact produced by the natural gas and naphtha seeping through cracks in the rocks, betraying the vast quantities of crude oil lying beneath the surface. London wasted little time in calling on geologists from Venezuela, Mexico, Romania and Indochina to study the land and recommend sites for drilling. On Oct. 14, 1927, the fate of Kirkuk was sealed: A gusher rising 43 meters (around 140 feet) erupted from the earth, dousing the surrounding land with some 95,000 barrels of crude oil for 10 days before the well could be capped. With oil now part of the equation, the political situation in Kirkuk became all the more flammable.

The British mostly imported Sunni Arab tribesmen to work the oil fields, gradually reducing the Kurdish majority and weakening the influence of the Turkmen minority in the area. The Arabization project was given new energy when the Arab Baath Socialist Party came to power through a military coup in 1968. Arabic names were given to businesses, neighborhoods, schools and streets, while laws were adjusted to pressure Kurds to leave Kirkuk and transfer ownership of their homes and lands to Arabs. Eviction tactics turned ghastly in 1988 under Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign, during which chemical weapons were employed against the Kurdish population. The Iraqi government continued with heavy-handed tactics to Arabize the territory until the collapse of the Baathist regime in 2003. Naturally, revenge was a primary goal as Kurdish factions worked quickly to repopulate the region with Kurds and drive the Arabs out.

ethnic-composition-of-kirkuk

Even as Kirkuk, its oil-rich fields and a belt of disputed territories stretching between Diyala and Nineveh provinces have remained officially under the jurisdiction of the Iraqi central government in Baghdad, the Kurdish leadership has sought to redraw the boundaries of Iraqi Kurdistan. After the Iraqi Kurdish region gained de facto autonomy with the creation of a no-fly zone in 1991 and then formally coalesced into the Kurdistan Regional Government after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Kurdish influence gradually expanded in the disputed areas. Kurdish representation increased through multi-ethnic political councils, facilitated by the security protection these communities received from the Kurdish peshmerga and by the promise of energy revenues, while Baghdad remained mired in its own problems. Formally annexing Kirkuk and parts of Nineveh and Diyala, part of the larger Kurdish strategy, would come in due time. Indeed, the expectation that legalities of the annexation process would soon be completed convinced a handful of foreign energy firms to sign contracts with the Kurdish authorities — as opposed to Baghdad — enabling the disputed territories to finally begin realizing the region’s energy potential.

Then the unexpected happened: In June, the collapse of the Iraqi army in the north under the duress of the Islamic State left the Kirkuk fields wide open, allowing the Kurdish peshmerga to finally and fully occupy them. Though the Kurds now sit nervously on the prize, Baghdad, Iran, local Arabs and Turkmen and the Islamic State are eyeing these fields with a predatory gaze. At the same time, a motley force of Iran-backed Shiite militias, Kurdish militants and Sunni tribesmen are trying to flush the Islamic State out of the region in order to return to settling the question of where to draw the line on Kurdish autonomy. The Sunnis will undoubtedly demand a stake in the oil fields that the Kurds now control as repayment for turning on the Islamic State, guaranteeing a Kurdish-Sunni confrontation that Baghdad will surely exploit.

The Turkish Dilemma

The modern Turkish government is looking at Iraq and Syria in a way similar to how Damat Ferid did almost a century ago when he sought in Paris to maintain Turkish sovereignty over the region. From Ankara’s point of view, the extension of a Turkish sphere of influence into neighboring Muslim lands is the antidote to weakening Iraqi and Syrian states. Even if Turkey no longer has direct control over these lands, it hopes to at least indirectly re-establish its will through select partners, whether a group of moderate Islamist forces in Syria or, in northern Iraq, a combination of Turkmen and Sunni factions, along with a Kurdish faction such as Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party. The United States may currently be focused on the Islamic State, but Turkey is looking years ahead at the mess that will likely remain. This is why Turkey is placing conditions on its involvement in the battle against the Islamic State: It is trying to convince the United States and its Sunni Arab coalition partners that it will inevitably be the power administering this region. Therefore, according to Ankara, all players must conform to its priorities, beginning with replacing Syria’s Iran-backed Alawite government with a Sunni administration that will look first to Ankara for guidance.

However, the Turkish vision of the region simply does not fit the current reality and is earning Ankara more rebuke than respect from its neighbors and the West. The Kurds, in particular, will continue to form the Achilles’ heel of Turkish policymaking.

In Syria, where the Islamic State is closing in on the city of Kobani on Turkey’s border, Ankara is faced with the unsavory possibility that it will be drawn into a ground fight with a well-equipped insurgent force. Moreover, Turkey would be fighting on the same side as a variety of Kurdish separatists, including members of Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which Ankara has every interest in neutralizing.

Turkey faces the same dilemma in Iraq, where it may unwittingly back Kurdish separatists in its fight against the Islamic State. Just as critical, Turkey cannot be comfortable with the idea that Kirkuk is in the hands of the Iraqi Kurds unless Ankara is assured exclusive rights over that energy and the ability to extinguish any oil-fueled ambitions of Kurdish independence. But Turkey has competition. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is not willing to make itself beholden to Turkey, as did Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party, while financial pressures continue to climb. Instead, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is staying close to Iran and showing a preference to work with Baghdad. Meanwhile, local Arab and Turkmen resistance to Kurdish rule is rising, a factor that Baghdad and Iran will surely exploit as they work to dilute Kurdish authority by courting local officials in Kirkuk and Nineveh with promises of energy rights and autonomy.

This is the crowded battleground that Turkey knows well. A long and elaborate game of “keep away” will be played to prevent the Kurds from consolidating control over oil-rich territory in the Kurdish-Arab borderland, while the competition between Turkey and Iran will emerge into full view. For Turkey to compete effectively in this space, it will need to come to terms with the reality that Ankara will not defy its history by resolving the Kurdish conundrum, nor will it be able to hide within its borders and avoid foreign entanglements.

“Turkey, the Kurds and Iraq: The Prize and Peril of Kirkuk is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

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EXCLUSIVE: Q and A with former Islamic State member

September 21, 2014

EXCLUSIVE: Q&A with former Islamic State member, Your Middle East, Rozh Ahmad, September 19, 2014

IS pic

Islamic State (IS) member “Sherko Omer” would now be a dead jihadist hadn’t he surrendered to the pro-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northeast Syria earlier this year. Journalist Rozh Ahmad met him to learn more about the experience.

In this interview “Omer” explains how he left his hometown in Iraqi Kurdistan to join the Syrian opposition and eventually became an IS member, what he witnessed and the reasons for which he risked his life to exit the extremist Islamic organisation.

Why and how did you join the Islamic State (IS) in Syria?

Two friends and I decided to leave Iraqi Kurdistan to join the Syrian opposition and its fight against the regime. In October 2013 we got contacts from several people close to the Kurdistan Islamic Group (Komal) in my hometown, Halabja. We were told that the contacts were members of the Free Syria Army (FSA). We met the contacts in Turkey and they took us to a hotel for few days. Afterward, they took us to a training camp on the Turkey-Syria border and we found ourselves at an ISIS (or IS) camp instead of FSA.

But how is it possible that you weren’t aware your contacts were IS jihadists?

Well, we spoke with them in standard Arabic but they did not mention anything about IS until we were at the training camp. They talked against the regime as a machinery killing its own Muslim people and we had already heard that from FSA on TV. Moreover, they had no beards, dressed in modern clothes and even took us to a hotel in the Turkish city of Kilis. We therefore assumed that they were FSA not IS, as did many others who came to Turkey to join the Syrian opposition but joined us at the IS camp.

Is it true that IS trains new recruits for beheadings on dead bodies at the camps?

Not true for the camp I was at, where beheading training was practiced with chickens and other animals. I did not do it because when we arrived they asked for my skills and qualifications and because I am a technical professional and I had qualifications, I was assigned to technical works and trained with pistols and lightweight weapons. This is because my main duty was to learn the communication equipment, interception of enemy phone and radio lines as well as rescuing digital gadgets and archives during attacks. I never engaged in a firefight and this was the precise reason why Kurdish YPG fighters agreed to hand me back to my family after months of investigations.

How did IS members treat you as a new recruit?

IS commanders were very nice and respectful at the camp. You would think you knew them for many years. They gave us the best food; clothes, weapons and we enjoyed the friendship and brotherhood. In reality we knew deep inside there was a choice to leave, but (we started) to think of ourselves as fighters taking this brotherhood and luxury to Syria and we were told that we had secured a place in heaven too, that was very comforting. But beside these facts, to be honest staying also felt like a moral obligation since they spent money, gave us food, clothes, cars and respected us so much that leaving the camp felt like betraying the good deeds of those people.

What about the promise of virgin angles [sic] in heaven, is there any truths to this?

Yes, of course. We were told that as martyrs we would have 72 eternal virgins in heaven and we can save dozens of our close relatives from hell too.

So, IS promises its’ recruits 72 virgin angels and you are saying this is not “anti-Islamic propaganda” as some people may otherwise claim?

We were promised women in heaven and on earth too based on IS jihadist teaching of the verses of some Suras of the holy book of Quran and hadiths by prophet Muhammad, all of which were explained through the Tafsir (explanation) by Islamic scholars like Ibn Majah, Bukhari and Ibn Kathir. We were told all non-Muslim women prisoners will be our wives and God wills it.

In Islamic holy war you cannot kill enemy women and children under any circumstances, they can only be taken as prisoners. It is permissible to have sexual intercourse with the captive women even if jihadists are married. You can buy and sell these women but for the children you have to raise them as home workers or teach them to become jihadists. I did none of these things because I was a communication technician not in the battlefield. And, who would claim otherwise when IS openly and proudly say they are carrying out these acts as implementation of Islamic Sharia.

Nonetheless, there are Muslim women who willingly offer their bodies for IS jihadists and this is called “Sex for Jihad” and they too will be compensated in heaven according to IS. However, these women were mostly with the commanders, I did not see average jihadist fighters with these Muslim women.

And everyone believed in this at the camp?

The consequences of disbelieving were not clear in an environment where they practice beheading. Nonetheless, many IS jihadist fighters truly believed all this but foreign recruits had no clue as to what the verses of holy Quran actually meant. I saw many foreign recruits who were put in the suicide squads not because they were “great and God wanted it” as IS commanders praised them in front of us, but basically because they were useless for IS, they spoke no Arabic, they weren’t good fighters and had no professional skills.  They were brainwashed into the “women in heaven” and those they could rape on earth before they eventually killed themselves. I am alive partly thanks to my qualifications.

You have to remember that IS has been portrayed as an organisation of gangs only, although this is evident what they do, but the political leadership pay unbelievable attention to education and educated recruits. But at the end of the day good moral values are based on the way education and intelligence are being used.

So IS jihadists could just take women prisoners and sleep with them against their will, which the world considers rape?

Not only I say this but the IS emirs and commanders openly and proudly says it too. They believe it is permissible to sleep with women prisoners even against their will if they are infidels, non-Muslims and apostate women.  This happened to Christian women in Al-Raqqa after their husbands were publically beheaded and I witnessed it. Now it is happening to Kurdish Yezidi women of Sinjar in Iraqi Kurdistan.

What did you witness in Al-Raqqa?

After training, my two Kurdish friends left to A’zaz where they have been confirmed killed now, but I was assigned to work as a technician in Al-Raqqa in the communications department. I was once told to go to a house to test some equipment to see if they can be useful for the technical and communication bureau. Once inside I realised it was a Christian home.

I saw six jihadists demanding that a Christian women and her daughter become their wives. The daughter was about 12-13-years-old. I told the jihadists forcing women is forbidden in Islam and children can’t be touched under any circumstances. They loaded their guns in my face and told me to leave. I immediately left to the local court that was based in a small house, but the judge was worse, he said I was wrong because 13-year-old girl is not considered a child, essentially because prophet Muhammad married his wife, Aisha, when she was only 9 years old. He accused me of having poor faith in the practices of prophet Muhammad for which I could have been detained and possibly punished with tough sentences, but my field commander soon arrived and saved me.

This was the reason that made you leave IS?

I wanted to leave first week into my post in Al-Raqqa but I was a coward, scared of getting beheaded and did not know my way out. Unlike at the camp, IS jihadists acted as God in Al-Raqqa. They were rude, arrested and killed anybody for no real reason.

I decided to risk my life to escape after I witnessed a wounded captured Kurdish YPG fighter publically beheaded. He was about my age, but unlike me he was extremely brave. He spat on every jihadist around him. He shouted slogans about Kurdish freedom and Abdullah Ocalan. I had never seen anyone so brave in my life. His fingers were cut yet he shouted insults against the jihadists. He was finally beheaded from behind to suffer and salt was put on his half-cult neck to die in agony but he did not give up until he painfully died this way. Children too were present at the public execution. However, I felt very sick afterward and did not sleep for a week thinking I am either going to runaway or kill myself, but thank God the chance came soon afterward in the city of Serekaniye.

How and why did you end up in Serekaniye (Ras Al-Ain) because I am not sure if it is possible to travel from Al-Raqqa to the Kurdish region these days?  

My commander said Kurdish YPG was an infidel secularist army and impure, arguing that each jihadist has the duty to first purify his own people and if we were all pure then infidels would not exit. The commander and others too gave me examples of Palestine and Israel as well as Kosovo and Serbs.  They told me jihadists should first fight impure Muslims of Palestine and Kosovo to purify them and this way Israelis and Serbs would not exist. This was argued against my Kurdish people too.  I joined a new battalion; we went back to Turkey and crossed the Turkish border to enter Serekaniye.

And what about the Ceylanpinar Turkish border post that is heavily controlled by Turkish soldiers?

They just turned a blind eye.

How?

We were initially told by the IS field commander to fear nothing because there was cooperation with the Turks at the border. The watchtower light caught us and our commander said everybody should stop but do not look at the light. He talked on the radio, then the watchtower light began to move after 8-10 minutes and that was the signal saying we could safely cross the border.

When and how did you finally escape IS in Serekaniye?

I was sent to fix radios, communication equipment and help resolve technical issues of a small base north of Serekaniye end of February 2014. I joined a new battalion for this because IS planned to regroup northeast Syria to attack the YPG. I fixed all the faulty equipment after I arrived in Serekaniye, but then they asked me to intercept and interpret YPG radio communications. YPG members spoke Kurmanji Kurdish and I spoke Sorani Kurdish, but I could’ve tried harder to accurately intercept and interpret YPG radios and track their next moves, but when I heard female fighters speaking in Kurdish over the radio I just couldn’t do it.

Nearly a week passed at the base and it was the YPG that attacked our campsite. I was lucky because I was at the last outpost faraway when YPG first attacked and I immediately surrendered after YPG sniper killed the two jihadists beside me. I shouted in Kurdish, they told me to go closer and get naked and after it was clear that I had no suicide belt, they accepted my surrender.  It is true that I have physically escaped now thanks to God and thanks to the YPG, but Al-Raqqa is mentally haunting me now because what I have witnessed is just pure horror.

“Sherko Omer” is a pseudonym. His real identity has been kept secret for security reasons. The views expressed are his own.

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