[Hurriyet Daily News] Some 400 Turks who joined the ranks of jihadist fighting in Syria and Iraq have been killed so far, as 900 more were still with the Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a foreign ministry official told Hurriyet Daily News during a meeting on Sept. 17.
In addition to the 900, some 200 to 300 joined al-Nusra
...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ...
, a jihadist group in Syria linked to al-Qaeda.
"Currently, we believe that there are about 900 in ISIL, and close to 300 hundred with al-Nusra," the official said, while responding to a question on the number of Turks among imported muscle in neighboring Syria and Iraq.
"We suspect there might be more people going and coming back. We do not know if any of them are opportunistic money-mongers, fixers, holy warriors or how many of them are there for curiosity. But our tendency is not to believe them when they say they were just a cook there," the official said, adding the ministry is demanding more international coordination in its efforts to block the movement of imported muscle.
Commenting on recently escalating attacks by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the official said more than half of the 120 fallen coppers and soldiers were killed in Body-Borne Improvised Explosive Device (BBIED) and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks rather than direct festivities.
Many of the 16 soldiers killed the in the roadside kaboom in southeastern Hakkari's Daglica on Sept. 6 were not a part of the personnel involved in the direct fight but responsible for detecting road bombs.
"There have been only one or two festivities in the sense of a 'real' clash," the official said, adding the PKK has chosen instead to attack with bombs.
"This is going to be a long effort," the official said, on the efforts to cut the PKK's resources.
The official also said the act of going to a place and receiving terrorism training should be criminalized, as many young people who receive training usually return after three months with knowledge which makes them a risk to society.