Syria’s foreign fighters in Turkey’s target, too

Murat Yetkin murat.yetkin@hdn.com.tr “How could we understand that some tourists from Europe are jihadists,” a Turkish security official complained to the Hürriyet Daily News on June 6. “It is not written on their foreheads. Now, since we have an intelligence flow from European countries, we are able to stop them at our gates and send them back.”

My source did not give any figures but a recent AFP story estimated the number at around 1,000.
The security official who asked not to be named is talking about “foreign fighters in Syria,” a growing “national security” problem for Western countries.

It is easier to call them European jihadists, but they are not only from Europe; they can be from the U.S. or Russia as well. “Syria is attracting them like a magnet,” another source complains. “Even Afghanistan could not be compared with the Syrian training ground for terrorists.”

They carry passports of American or European Union, or Russian countries. They are either North African, Arab origin, or radical Muslims from the North Caucasus and the Balkan countries, or natives of Western countries who converted to Islam through radical organizations. They travel to Syria – a bit via Jordan, but mostly – via Turkey, mostly using their legal tourist passports. Turkey does not impose advance visas on American or European countries to attract more tourists. They arrive – mostly – at Istanbul airports, pay their cheap visa duty there, make sure no one follows their trail, find their ways to the 910-kilometer-long Turkish-Syrian border and cross over covertly or even legally. They go to Syria to fight in the ranks of radical Islamic groups like al-Nusra, the Syria branch...