It Is Still Very Easy to Reach ISIS Across Poorly Guarded Turkish-Syrian Border

Tim Arango and Eric Schmitt

March 10, 2015

A Path to ISIS, Through a Porous Turkish Border

GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Under pressure from its allies in the West, Turkey has made it harder for would-be jihadists to slip across the border and join the ranks of the Islamic State group at its base in northern Syria.

But it has been unable — or unwilling — to halt the flow as the group, also calledISIS or ISIL, continues to replenish forces depleted in battle.

Smugglers from border villages who have long earned a living ferrying pistachios, sugar, cigarettes and fuel across the border say they are compelled by the Islamic State to traffic in jihadists, under the threat of death or the end of their livelihoods. Sometimes they receive a late-night phone call from an ISIScommander inside Syria directing them to receive a recruit at a luxury hotel in this city to escort across the border.

“Things have become more difficult because Turkey has stricter procedures on the border,” one smuggler who gave only his first name, Mustafa, said in an interview at a cafe in Kilis, a border town.

Even so, he said, he always finds a way, and sometimes the Turkish border guards in his village, who know him, look the other way.

The increased pressure means the frenetic days of 2012 are over. Foreign jihadists, with long beards and trademark fanny packs who once filled the cafes and streets in border towns, now slip quietly through Turkey, trying to attract little attention. Military supply shops, which once openly sold black headbands printed with Islamist slogans, body armor and, sometimes, weapons to foreigners on their way to Syria, have taken their business into back rooms.

So far nearly 20,000 foreigners, including about 3,400 Westerners, have joined the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, according to Nicholas Rasmussen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington. The majority of them have traveled through Turkey, underscoring, Western officials said, both the difficulty of patrolling a porous border and a degree of ambivalence among Turkish officials who do not see the Islamic State as a primary enemy.

Though Turkey has taken some recent measures to crack down on the flow of jihadists, none of these efforts are enough for Turkey’s Western allies, especially those in Europe who, in the wake of the January attack on the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, are increasingly worried about the return of militants to launch attacks.

The issue has highlighted the widening gulf between Turkey and its Western allies, who have frequently questioned why Turkey, a NATO member with a large military and well-regarded intelligence service, is not doing more to address the jihadist threat.

In recent testimony in Washington before Congress, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, was asked if he was optimistic that Turkey would do more in the fight against the Islamic State.

“No, I’m not,” Mr. Clapper said in an unusually blunt public criticism. “I think Turkey has other priorities and other interests.”

Mr. Clapper cited public opinion polls in Turkey that show Turks do not see the Islamic State as a primary threat. For instance, the Turks, he said, are more concerned with opposing Kurdish autonomy within Syria than in fighting the Islamic State.

The consequence of Turkey’s stance, he said, is the continued “permissive environment” in the border region that still allows the movement of jihadists back and forth across the border.

Turkey insists it is doing what it can. At Turkey’s airports, train stations and bus depots, undercover security agents search for travelers on one-way tickets and secretly scrutinize passengers with long beards and other indicators that suggest they might be jihadists. But officials say that Islamist recruits are increasingly trying to blend in as tourists — shaving and wearing jeans and T-shirts.

Turkish officials also say they are limited by restraints on intelligence sharing from Western countries, which they say has improved but remains inadequate. They say they have compiled, with the help of foreign intelligence agencies, about 10,000 names on a no-entry list, or about half the number of foreigners believed to have joined the Islamic State.

Turkish officials bristle at the criticism from the West and say that, especially among European countries, the focus on the problem came only after the Charlie Hebdo attack and after Hayat Boumeddiene, the wife of one of the Paris attackers, was able to slip in to Syria from Turkey. But Turkish officials also say that Europeans should try to fix the problem at its root, stopping the demonization of Islam in Europe, which they say contributes to radicalization in the first place.

A senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official, responsible for intelligence on foreign fighters, said: “I am not trying to put the blame on others here. Everyone is responsible and this is not about a blame game, but those who accuse Turkey of not doing anything should ask what exactly they have done to prevent these people from traveling so freely, or to get radicalized in the first place.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss intelligence matters.

Another Turkish official involved in intelligence matters, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of his work, said of the Europeans, “Ultimately they end up exporting jihadists to Turkey and then make it appear like this is Turkey’s problem.”

In the border area, the official involved in intelligence matters acknowledged, “there are many smuggling routes and it’s not possible to block them all.”

In the first years of the Syrian civil war, now approaching its fifth year, jihadists moved easily across the border, often with the help of Turkish agents acting on behalf of a government eager to enable the downfall of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey’s belief that Mr. Assad would fall quickly never materialized, and even as jihadists have come to dominate the battlefields, Turkey still sees Mr. Assad as its primary enemy. At the same time, analysts and officials said, Turkey is increasingly worried that should it take a tougher stance on the Islamic State there could be retaliation inside Turkey, in the form of attacks by ISIS cells known to operate within the country.

Turkey has long pushed for a buffer zone in northern Syria. This area, say the Turks, would allow a safe space for refugees and an opposition government to set roots on Syrian soil, and for moderate rebels — who could fight both the Assad government and ISIS — to train. The United States has so far been opposed to this, saying it would entail a significant expansion of the military operation, including establishing a no-fly zone.

But as worries increase over the threat posed by foreign jihadists, the idea could be revived, some analysts and officials said.

“The buffer zone is the only solution for the crisis of the refugees and the crisis of the extremists and foreign fighters in Syria,” said Col. Ziad Obeid, a commander in the Free Syrian Army who is based near the Syrian border in southern Turkey and has been involved in discussions with the Turks about a buffer zone.

As the wars in Syria and Iraq rage on, and the international coalition struggles for an effective strategy, there is a deepening sense among Western officials that they will have to accept a limited role from Turkey.

“We have a complicated ongoing discussion with the Turks, all of the Turkish government elements, about the specific ways in which Turkey can contribute to the coalition,” Mr. Rasmussen, the terrorism official, said in recent congressional testimony. “It is truly a mixed story.”

In the border region, smugglers say they have no choice but to continue ferrying foreigners to Syria to join the Islamic State. Despite Turkish efforts to shut down border gates that once allowed refugees and militants to cross freely to and from Syria, Turkish smugglers are still often found approaching people near border crossings to offer their services.

Mustafa, the smuggler, estimated that in recent years he has helped about 200 foreigners get across the border to fight. In the beginning, he said, he did so willingly and mostly for Jabhet al-Nusra, a group affiliated with Al Qaeda-and from which ISIS, a more brutal outfit, broke away.

Then, he was happy to help Nusra. “They were the real jihadis,” he said. “They were fighting Assad. ISIS is killing everyone, even the Sunnis.”