{"id":1602,"date":"2021-02-02T12:36:02","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T20:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.new.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/?p=1602"},"modified":"2021-02-06T01:38:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-06T09:38:00","slug":"treasury-report-highlights-turkey-as-islamic-states-logistical-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/treasury-report-highlights-turkey-as-islamic-states-logistical-hub\/","title":{"rendered":"Treasury Report Highlights Turkey as Islamic State\u2019s Logistical Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"

As reported by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)<\/a>, the U.S. Department of the Treasury\u00a0 in a report issued on January 4, 2021<\/a>, documented the Islamic State often relied on \u201clogistical hubs in Turkey\u201d to transfer funds internationally, especially between Iraq and Syria. Treasury\u00a0 identified Turkey-based Islamic State networks three times<\/a>\u00a0since 2019, which, along with the department\u2019s latest finding, shows that jihadists continue to thrive in the permissive environment Ankara has cultivated.<\/p>\n

As the FDD reports, the Treasury\u2019s Office of Inspector General presented its first quarterly report of the year to the Department of Defense regarding Treasury\u2019s support for Operation Inherent Resolve, the campaign against the Islamic State. The quarterly report highlights that the Islamic State continues to raise funds through \u201cextortion of oil smuggling networks in eastern Syria, kidnapping for ransom targeting civilian businesses and populations, looting, and possibly the operation of front companies\u201d and has \u201cas much as $100 million available in cash reserves dispersed across the region.\u201d According to Treasury\u2019s assessment, the Islamic State uses money services businesses to transfer funds, often utilizing logistical hubs in Turkey.<\/p>\n

Since 2014, Turkey has been a\u00a0key jurisdiction<\/a>\u00a0the Islamic State exploits for smuggling militants, weapons, and funds to Syria. In early 2019, after stepping down as U.S. special envoy for the international coalition against the Islamic State, Brett McGurk\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0that although President Barack Obama repeatedly asked his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, \u201cto control the Turkish border with Syria,\u201d through which Islamic State fighters and materiel \u201cflowed freely,\u201d Erdogan \u201ctook no action.\u201d Six months later, following a U.S. Special Operations Forces\u00a0raid<\/a>\u00a0that killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, McGurk\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0that Turkey \u201chas some explaining to do,\u201d since Baghdadi was found \u201cjust a few miles from Turkey\u2019s border,\u201d in a province \u201cprotected by a dozen Turkish military outposts since early 2018.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the last two years, Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has taken repeated steps to designate Islamic State networks exploiting Turkey\u2019s permissive environment. In\u00a0April 2019<\/a>, Treasury\u00a0sanctioned<\/a>\u00a0six individuals and a currency exchange company based in Turkey with links to the\u00a0Rawi Network<\/a>, whose members are key financiers for the Islamic State. Five months later, OFAC\u00a0designated<\/a>\u00a0Turkey-based terror financiers working for both the Islamic State and Hamas. In November 2019, OFAC\u00a0issued sanctions<\/a>\u00a0against three Turkish entities and two Turkish citizens for \u201cproviding critical financial and logistical support\u201d to the Islamic State. Last month, Treasury\u00a0designated<\/a>\u00a0two Egyptians based in Turkey for being leaders of\u00a0Harakat Sawa\u2019d Misr<\/a>, a Foreign Terrorist Organization.<\/p>\n

As it did following Baghdadi\u2019s death, Ankara often responds to such shaming with\u00a0frantic roundup<\/a>s of alleged Islamic State members within its jurisdiction. This time around, Ankara also responded to Treasury\u2019s findings by\u00a0launching<\/a>\u00a0well-publicized police operations against the Islamic State in 15 provinces and arresting 35 suspects. Such publicity stunts, however, rarely result in a sustained effort against jihadists in concert with the U.S.-led international coalition against the Islamic State. The Paris-based news agency Agence France-Presse, for example,\u00a0exposed<\/a>\u00a0in November 2019 that Ankara had been detaining key Islamic State figures since 2018 but failed to mention them to allies for over a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As reported by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the U.S. Department of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo.jpg",450,360,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo-300x240.jpg",250,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo.jpg",450,360,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo.jpg",400,320,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo.jpg",450,360,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo.jpg",450,360,false],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo.jpg",450,360,false],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo.jpg",450,360,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo.jpg",450,360,false],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo.jpg",425,340,false],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo.jpg",313,250,false],"rpwe-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo-45x45.jpg",45,45,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"ArmenianCouncil","author_link":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/author\/armeniancouncil\/"},"category_info":"News<\/a>","tag_info":"News","comment_count":0,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Islamic-state-flag-turkish-flag-photo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}