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 Daesh group at its base in northern Syria, The New York Times reported.
But it has been unable — or unwilling — to halt the flow as the group, also called Daesh or Daesh, 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 Daesh 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 Daesh commander 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.
So far nearly 20,000 foreigners, including about 3,400 Westerners, have joined Daesh 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 Daesh as a primary enemy.
Source: MENA