Anatomy of MIT's ISIS Operation

You see, you watch, you listen, aren't the "Free Syrian Army" and the "Safe Zone" phenomena being portrayed as if they are Turkey's apparatus to take over Syria on its own? Isn't it astonishing? It is impossible to understand this state of ignorance or - to use a recent fashionable term - "look the other way".

An advanced form of this is the "systemic" testing of us with lies. In fact, you are aware of everything around you, but the circumstances require you to pretend you don't know, it is difficult. Both sides can get out of this situation by 'playing dumb'. The Ottoman state tradition gave this situation a good name: "The Art of Tecahül-i Arif". It is the art of knowing and pretending not to know. Incidentally, the word "systemic", which I have consciously used above, is used as "systematic" because most people do not know it. This is wrong.

Systemic means looking at the whole system, not a part of it. It means seeing the big picture. It means addressing the problematic issue within certain systems with numerical data and making inferences.

Let's get to the point. The arguments of the "Free Syrian Army" and the "Safe Zone" to be established in the north of Syria are not projects that Turkey has produced on its own and challenged Syria, but, let's put it directly, a NATO, North Atlantic Pact and Partnership project. To put it more accurately, they are "Security Projects through Partnership". Because NATO's south-eastern border is the Turkish-Syrian border, it passes through here. Don't pay any attention to the insolent claims of Greece's Prime Minister Kriakos Mitsotakis, the spoiled child of Europe, and Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias that the eastern border of Europe is the Evros River. When you look at it as the EU, for a moment their arguments may seem right, but the military alliance is the real thing. NATO. Geopolitics and geostrategy are about time-space-power. The "Free Syrian Army" is a Partnership for Peace (PfP) project. (1)

The "Safe Zone" is a project to secure NATO borders. In short, these two projects are "Security through Partnership Projects". (1) The "Free Syrian Army" created by the USA, France and the Republic of Turkey is a joint NATO project. However, it seems that France and the USA have found the 'Syrian PeKaKaKaKa' that will work for them and serve their own purposes, and they have focused on it and left Turkey alone. Whatever they call it, such as the Syrian Democratic Forces, far from being the fighters of the National Forces fighting for liberation against the expansionist imperialists, they are the manchurts of the patchwork collaborationist PeKaKa, in cooperation with the expansionist USA and the West, they are primarily attacking their own people and consciously melting down the youth, the driving force of progress. The apparatuses and dummies of Kurdistan in Four Parts have never been and can never be freedom fighters. Freedom Fighters fight for liberation against the expansionist imperialists like the Turkish National Struggle, they do not cooperate. 

Since the US specifically uses the term 'Free Army' for its apparatus organizations, the current name of the force in the north of Syria, which was established, trained and equipped by the US, France and Turkey, has been transformed into the 'Syrian National Army'. The "Free Syrian Army" is used for the forces created by the US in the Derea and Tanif US base area along the David Corridor in southern Syria. In short, the forces in the northern secure corridor against the Damascus regime and ISIS are called the "Syrian National Army (SMO)", while the forces in the southern corridor of Daud are called the "Free Syrian Army".

The second issue that Turkey is associated with is the issue of being lumped in with ISIS and ISIS apparatuses. What is interesting here is that just as they left Turkey alone in the fight against terrorism, they did not fulfill their obligations in the Free Syrian Army issue and left Turkey alone. Is this only this much? They have also targeted Turkey, a NATO member, to the coalition forces supposedly fighting against ISIS in northern Syria. However, ISIS is a studio project of the USA. Despite the fact that all the dirty wars in Syria have failed to produce any results, they tirelessly equate the Syrian National Army with former ISIS, former al-Qaeda and militia groups that also include Salafi-jihadist elements such as al-Nusra. "Turkey trains, equips and pays the SMO and uses it for its own interests" is the lie they tell on every platform. Another lie is the dirty slander that "Turkey is not only not content with this, but also shields the ISIS remnant Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies in Idlib, despite being on the list of terrorist organizations." (2)

How can this be the only thing? The accusations of Turkey against the world public opinion, which one cannot believe, in the context of crimes against humanity as stipulated in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, are summarized as follows, categorized by the "Irish among us" (2)

- Leading a dirty proxy war.

- Destroying the security of borders for regime change apparatuses.

- Engaging with terrorist organizations. Transferring fighters and distributing thousands of tons of weapons.

- Looting Aleppo's organized industrial facilities.

- Participating in chemical weapons plots.

- Controlling Syria's territory through the Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch and Peace Spring operations.

- Not touching any of these despite promising to eliminate terrorist organizations with the Sochi and Moscow agreements.

- Destroying the potential for peace by targeting all Kurdish gains.

- Turning a blind eye to the looting of all the region's assets by Islamist militias moving into Afrin. Cutting down olive trees, confiscating the harvest in the fields and the products in the factories, looting history, seizing homes and land...

- Interfering with demographics. To dispossess the Kurds, who are de facto treated as an 'objectionable population' through military operations." (2)

Yes, dear readers, all this is being done by Turkey, let me inform you. This is what "PeKaKa" patronage looks like. In order for those who categorize this list to hide the fact that they are pro-US, they have placed at the top of this list the gilded lie that Turkey's primary duty is to be a subcontractor for the US operation to design the region. For God's sake, what is the French word for this discourse? My answer is 'Al insaf'.

The stronghold of the ISIS terrorist organization in Daraa, where the civil war broke out in the David Corridor in southern Syria, is the 'Tarik al-Sedd' neighborhood. Those who know it know it. With Trump, the US has begun to effectively implement the strategy of eliminating the leaders of Salafi-jihadist elements and Iranian apparatus organizations in the region that have declared war on its policies, and against formations such as Hezbollah and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The assassination of Iranian General Qassem Suleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of Hashd al-Shaabi, as well as the killing of the so-called Caliphs of ISIS are indicators of this strategy.  The assassination of Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Quraishi, the leader of ISIS, in Daraa in November 2022 is also part of the same policy. Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, who succeeded Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the first leader of ISIS, was killed in February last year in an operation organized by US special forces in northwestern Syria. The US Central Command (CENTCOM) is responsible for the operation. This is also why CENTCOM made the announcement after the death of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, claiming that Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the head of ISIS, was also killed. US forces are not alone in the region. They are cooperating with an opposition group called "Mugawwir al-Tawra" in the al-Tanif region, where the borders of Iraq, Syria and Jordan meet. The group has recently changed its name to the "Free Syrian Army". The 'Free Syrian Army' in the north changed its name to the 'Syrian National Army' at the request of the US. This is the rule of this matter. It cannot and cannot be deviated from it, even if rarely.

The leader of one of the local factions in Daraa that participated in the operation against ISIS cells told Al-Sharq al-Awsat that the local factions, with the participation of the 8th Brigade, carried out major military operations targeting ISIS cells in the city of Casim in the northern countryside of Daraa and in the city of Daraa al-Baled. A large number of leaders and members of the organization were killed after several days of clashes between local groups and the Eighth Brigade from the city of 'Daraa al-Balad' in the western and northern countryside of Daraa. The leader added that the operations led to the killing of more than five of the organization's leaders classified as 'umera/ emirs', adding that they were not Syrian, but Iraqi and Lebanese nationals.  (3)

It was precisely in such a conjuncture that Turkey and MİT, the only institution responsible for intelligence activities, stepped in. The operation carried out on April 29, 2023 by the MİT, which is highly skilled in neutralizing the members of illegal high-level organizations in their own neighborhoods, which they deem safe, was suddenly on the agenda of the world public opinion. On the night of May 1, 2023, President Erdoğan announced the operation on the joint television program "Presidential Special Broadcast" and the world agenda was shaken. Based on instant intelligence that the so-called "Last Caliph of ISIS" Abu Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi, the leader of the organization codenamed Abu Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi, who is known to change his location frequently, was in the town of Jindires in the town of Afrin in the safe zone in northern Syria and that he would change his location in the near future, an impact-oriented operation was carried out by MİT. During the operation against the house, which also contained a camouflaged underground bunker, al-Quraishi was called to "surrender", but no response was received. Counter-Intelligence (CI) forces entered the building by first blowing up the wall of the house, then the back entrance doors and side walls. Then, realizing that he would be captured, al-Quraishi detonated the suicide vest he was wearing, according to the press. Al-Qurayshi, who joined ISIS in 2013 and rose to senior positions within the organization in a short time, was declared as the "new caliph" on November 30, 2022 after the previous leader of ISIS, Abu Hassan al-Qurayshi, was killed by the US.

This neutralization of the so-called last caliph of ISIS, Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the leader of the ISIS organization, in a sense, the fact that this information was given by President Erdoğan, who was trying to be shown side by side with ISIS abroad, not only surprised the public opinion abroad, but also informed the world public opinion that the Republic of Turkey fights against terrorism without any discrimination. French news agencies AFP and France 24 reported the development with the headline "Erdoğan says suspected ISIS leader al-Qurayshi neutralized in Syria". "We will continue our fight against terrorist organizations without discrimination," Erdoğan's statement was quite effective, according to the American CNN International. 

Qatar-based Al Jazeera ran the headline "Erdogan announces that Turkey has killed ISIS leader". The news that al-Qurayshi was neutralized was also reported by the BBC. The British broadcaster also included Erdoğan's statement that "MİT had been following al-Quraishi for a long time." Greek public broadcaster ERT reported that Erdoğan said that the so-called leader of DAESH was neutralized in Syria. Proto Tema and Pentapostagma newspapers also shared Erdoğan's statements with their readers.  Is that all? The Italian newspapers Il Messaggero and Corrie Della Sera; the Dutch NRC Newspaper, Spain's RTVE Television, El Mundo, Publico newspapers and Europe Press Agency; Switzerland's German-language SRF television, Bosnia-Herzegovina's Dnevni Avaz news agency, Serbia's SRNA News Agency, Croatia's Jutarnji News Agency; the Polish News Agency, the Finnish News Agency 'YLE' and Japan's 'NHK JIJI' news agency also brought this issue to the top of the agenda. In this way, the gray and black propaganda that the US and its allies were thinking behind closed doors against Turkey was prevented. Let's not forget that the name of this in multi-track diplomacy is "pre-emption in action". 

Yes, dear readers, the smear campaign against Turkey, which the US and its allies had been thinking behind closed doors, has been taken away from the US and its allies, shot with its own weapon, and has been pushed back. In a sense, this is the breaking and disintegration of the pre-emption parameter in the attack. With this latest operation, the Republic of Turkey has rendered the parameters of the US attack controversial. Because, dear readers, the majority of the world public opinion stood behind this operation carried out by Turkey and was able to show that they did so in the world media.  

Footnotes

(1) NATO, "Partnership for Peace: Framework Document", Brussels Summit, January 10, 1994

(2) Fehim Taştekin, "Syria impasse: Let's shoot on yellow, not green", Gazete Duvar, December 15, Thursday 2022; https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/suriye-cikmazi-yesil-yanmadi-sarida-vuralim-makale-1593782/Erişim Date 07.05.2023/

(3)https://turkish.aawsat.com/home/article/4020741/dea%C5%9F-lideri-ve- arkada%C5%9Flar%C4%B1-suriyenin-g%C3%BCneyinde-nas%C4%B1l-%C3%B6ld%C3%BCr%C3%BCld%C3%BC/ Erişim Tarihi 07.05.2023/

(4) https://www.trthaber.com/haber/dunya/turkiyenin-deas-operasyonu-dunya-basininda-763941.html/ Access Date 07.05.2023/