Page 11 - TURKRptSep21

Airport while Islamic State suicide bombers were exploding around the airport. The US and Turkey were working on a plan whereby these soldiers would keep Kabul’s international airport secure and operational. However, the chances of anything like this plan moving forward with Taliban consent looks rather unlikely by now. The fate of the developments will be based on the US’ reaction against the Islamic State attacks that killed dozens of its soldiers.
- The US has been advising Afghans who served American forces and are in peril in the new reality to head for Turkey.
Anxieties in Europe and Turkey over the upcoming immigrant waves are growing. Afghanistan’s population is estimated as approaching 40mn people and the country has been a source of migration since 1979. Syria’s population stood at around 20mn prior to its war. According to official figures, 7mn have left the country since the shooting began, with 3.6mn presently hosted by Turkey.
There are officially around 0.1mn Afghan migrants in Turkey, with the country officially hosting 3.7mn refugees in all, making it the world leader, according to UN figures. But there are “actual figures” in circulation in Turkey that describe a total of 10mn migrants, including 5-6mn Syrians and 1-1.5mn Afghans.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently stated that there were about 0.3mn Afghans in Turkey. It is not known how he went about counting his country's unregistered Afghans.
The UN’s figures also suggest that Afghanistan was the world's third largest source of refugees, amounting to 2.6mn people at end-2020, behind 6.7mn Syrians and 4mn Venezuelans.
Pakistan officially hosts around 1.5mn Afghans, followed by Iran with 0.8mn. However, it is said that there are in fact approximately 3.5mn Afghans in Iran, a country that has recently been allowing Afghans to make their way via a mountainous route to Turkey.
The 1.5mn or so Syrian migrants who arrived in Europe, mostly in 2015, dramatically changed the continent’s political landscape.
Can Turkey take on a new war?
Given the fraught state of affairs in the country, it is hard to estimate what might happen in Turkey if the Erdogan regime involves the country in a Syria-like war in Afghanistan.
Turkey’s full-blown engagement with jihadism started with the Syria Civil War in 2011 and by now the country is surrounded by jihadist networks. Yazidi girls, captured by the Islamic State militants in Iraq, are sold as slaves in Ankara.
“Turkish police each month detain dozens of Islamic State militants as they take shelter, transfer money and traffick human beings in Turkey.” One man, namely Mahmut Ozden, is arrested periodically. So, the Turkish government’s fight against jihadists in the country just for cheap PR to fool domestic and international public opinion.
The Turkish judiciary is infamous for holding innocent people in lengthy pre-trial detentions without formally indicting them, while some judicial actors in Turkey see Islamic State militants simply as “misguided Muslims.” The militants each receive a prison sentence of less than five years, which essentially means a de facto release in Turkey. “Foreign Islamic State militants usually prefer to stand trial in Turkey since they have a greater chance of avoiding jail.” “Foreign Islamic State militants see Turkey as a safe harbour.”
11 TURKEY Country Report September 2021 www.intellinews.com