Baghdad, June 19 (IANS) A Turkish Islamic State militant, captured recently by the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, has confirmed the close connections between Ankara and the Sunni radical group.
Huseyin Mustafa Peri, a Turkish national who was arrested by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria earlier in June, stated that Ankara and the IS have close economic ties.
“A certain trade must be going on… There could be some kind of a fuel or oil deal… or some sort of a water deal,” Peri said in an interview with the Al-Monitor website released on Thursday, adding that he could frequently “see Turkish goods in the Islamic State’s shops” during his stay in the Arab country.
The 25-year-old militant also touched upon IS’s attack on the Turkish consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in June last year, saying the terrorist group released the 49 Turkish captives from the incident following a prisoner swap and “some sort of a trade deal” with the government in Ankara.
Certain IS affiliates “imprisoned in Turkey were swapped… there were some sort of a trade deal or an oil deal in addition to the issue of the captives”, he noted, citing an IS commander.
Peri further revealed that the IS maintained a massive presence in Turkey, adding that there were several schools and community structures that advertise the group’s ideology in the Turkish cities of Konya and Gaziantep.
Some of these schools “used to support” the Justice and Development Party of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he went on to say.
He further revealed that IS militants consider as “spoils” of war the belongings of the people fleeing their homelands in fear.
The spoils “are divided into five… one portion would go to the IS and the other four would be shared between us in the unit…” he said, adding that the military commander of each unit, also known as the emir, “could decide to give the four portions to the Islamic State as well”.
The IS started its campaign of terror in Syria in 2012.
The IS militants currently control areas across Syria as well as northern and western Iraq.
They have been carrying out horrific acts of violence, including public decapitations, against Iraqi communities such as Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians.