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"Every day, trucks laden with food, clothing, and other supplies cross the border from Turkey to Syria. It is unclear who is picking up the goods." It is a wel
by afsina 11y ago
"Every day, trucks laden with food, clothing, and other supplies cross the border from Turkey to Syria. It is unclear who is picking up the goods."
It is a well known fact that Turkey aided Syrian opposition and people live under attack. Perhaps IS might have seized some goods. It is hard to dispatch anything when there is a war. But this news piece starts with a silly assumption. Completely loses the value.
For the second:
" From mid-2013, the Tunisian fighter had been responsible for smuggling oil from Syria’s eastern fields, which the group had by then commandeered. Black market oil quickly became the main driver of Isis revenues – and Turkish buyers were its main clients."
Smuggling. So Turkish government is perpetrator because there are oil smugglers? Please. IS sells oil to black market and smugglers (probably even Syrian Government) takes it. How is Turkish government is a supporter of IS here? Smuggling is a decades old problem in south east Turkey (Mostly Kurdish area). They tried to prevent it with special high tech chemical marker dyes and strict controls but you cannot stop it.
Also keep in mind that Guardian always use anti government sources for Turkish news. (Mostly left leaning, pro-kurdish or Gulenist.).
- cygx 11y agoRemember Joe Biden talking about Turkey shipping weapons into Syria that ended up in the hands of Jihadis?[1] They actually have been caught red-handed[2], and allegedly it's still ongoing[3]. I do not believe all accusations are merely propaganda by the West, Russia, the Kurds or his internal political enemies. Sure, that does happen, and I would eg take the accusations of Bilal Erdoğan's involvement in the smuggling of ISIS oil with a grain of salt. But supplying the enemy of your enemies with weapons and politicians trying to make deals with the devil? That's old news. [1] http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/05/politics/isis-biden-erdogan-apology/ http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/05/politics/isis-biden-erdoga... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_National_Intelligence_Organisation_scandal_in_Turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_National_Intelligence_Org... [3] http://www.todayszaman.com/_raid-on-koza-i-pek-media-group-comes-after-reports-on-transfer-of-weapons-to-isil_397966.html http://www.todayszaman.com/_raid-on-koza-i-pek-media-group-c...
- afsina 11y ago[1] This is same deal, even ISIS seized something it was most probably not intentional. And he apologies for his comments. Nothing to see here. [2] This scandal was the work of Gulenists. Most likely those weapons were headed to Syrian opposition but because of the on going war between Gulen and Erdoğan, Gulenist media presented this as if ISIS was the receiving side. Surely ISIS may intercept and seize some of weapons (Hey, they even took US sent weapons!) but portraying this as "ISIS aid" was purely according to Gulen's agenda. They made this propaganda especially in the foreign media to strengthen their attack. [3] Today's Zaman is the most active Gulenist propaganda press. Starting from mid 2013 their sole aim is to throw Erdoğan from his position. Their credibility is even lower than pro-Government media. I am a skeptic and a non-interventionist but I have yet to see any decisive or convincing proof that Turkish government actually aided ISIS deliberately and intentionally. I believe those news are mostly result of extreme confirmation bias, or blatant anti-Erdogan propaganda. There may be some individuals or group of people in Turkey supporting ISIS, or there might have been some Logistics screw ups so ISIS took stuff that were meant for others. But that is it.