Uighur terrorist in Istanbul attack -- one of 100,000 ?
"Turkey believes the gunman who killed 39 people in an attack on new year revellers in an Istanbul nightclub is an ethnic Uighur, a senior government official has said. Veysi Kaynak, one of several deputy prime ministers..." (Guardian)
Somewhat strange is the role of Uighurs in supporting Daesh, the Islamic State. Even more mysterious is Turkey's role as facilitator of the Uighur migration to Syria and Iraq. .Chances are that the Istanbul assassin entered Turkey on one of those 100,000 fake Turkish passports we reported about in April 2015. Here is our story:
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants were given more than 100,000 fake Turkish passports in order to travel to Turkey and then enter Syria to join ISIL, a daily reported on Thursday.
According to a story in the Meydan daily, A.G., an aide of Nurali T., a Uyghur Turk working for ISIL to provide militants with passports worldwide, Nurali T.'s office in İstanbul's Zeytinburnu district functions as an ISIL passport office. Each passport was sold for $200, A.G. told Meydan.
More than 50,000 Uyghur Turks came to Turkey with these fake passports from China via Thailand and Malaysia and entered Syria after staying a day in İstanbul, Meydan reported. A.G. claimed that most of the Uyghurs with fake passports were caught by police in Turkish airports but they were released in Turkey after their passports were seized. “The Uyghurs' release in Turkey is due to a secret [little-known] Turkish law on Uyghur Turks. More than 50,000 Uyghurs joined ISIL through this method,” A.G. added.
Today's Zaman, 9/04/15"
Update
"It appears the Reina [nightclub] attack is not just a terrorist organisation's act, but there was also an intelligence organisation involved. It was an extremely planned and organised act," Norman Kurtulmus said during an interview. He did not indicate which intel organization he meant.
Abdullah Bozkurt thinks he knows who is behind several terror attacks in Turkey.
--ed