Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm
Confidential documents have revealed that Turkey’s intelligence agency (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MIT) has for some time been aware of the activities of a senior Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader operating within Turkey and managing the group’s smuggling network in Greece.
An intelligence note shared by MIT with the Security Directorate General (Emniyet) on May 13, 2023 and obtained by Nordic Monitor showed that Barzan Hasan Ibrahim Albo-Badri, a cousin of the late ISIS leader and caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, relocated from Iraq to Turkey to assist in directing the terrorist organization’s operations within and through Turkey.
The note discloses that Albo-Badri, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Havra, easily acquired identity documents in Turkey through the refugee registration system. He was given foreign national identity number 99290694198, enabling him access to government services, establish residency and conduct business in the country.
Registration records also indicate that Albo-Badri listed his birth date as August 8, 1991 and provided the names of his parents as Hasan and Zine.
The Security Directorate General concealed the origin of the intelligence by referring to MIT as “Institution V” to avoid potential embarrassment to the agency in the event of a leak.
The note stated that Albo-Badri secured a second identity under the name of Balen Omer Mohammed Mohammed, registered as an Iraqi refugee. Mohammed’s personal records obtained by Nordic Monitor indicate that this secondary identity listed his birth date as June 21, 2000, with the parents’ names given as Omer and Rezhaw Hussain.
The intelligence note on ISIS members, provided by the spy agency MIT, reveals that Turkish authorities were aware of the terrorist organization’s operatives in both Turkey and Greece:
How Albo-Badri managed to secure two refugee identities in Turkey remains a mystery, especially considering that such registrations require biometric data, including fingerprints, and thorough cross-referencing against intelligence databases maintained by various Turkish agencies. Under standard procedures, the refugee registration system should have flagged any attempt to register a second identity using the same biometric data.
He may have navigated the registration process by bribing local officials responsible for entering data into the system, or he may have had influential connections within the government who facilitated his entries into the refugee database maintained by the migration agency.
What is even more perplexing is that Turkish intelligence already possesses information about him and his background, including familiarity with his second assumed identity. It seems that Turkish intelligence viewed him as a valuable asset in facilitating the movement of ISIS members to Europe, a strategy that was employed for a period by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to gain leverage in negotiations with the European Union.
The MIT intelligence note outlined how Albo-Badri managed the ISIS smuggling network from Turkey to Europe, utilizing Greece as a springboard. He even deployed trusted ISIS operatives to Greece to oversee the smuggling operations on the Greek side.
While operating freely in Turkey with the knowledge of MIT, Albo-Badri was subject to an outstanding arrest warrant issued by the Kırşehir High Criminal Court in 2020 on terrorism charges. He was apprehended on August 17, 2022 while attempting to board a plane at Sabiha Gökçen Airport in Istanbul after a police officer noticed suspicious behavior and decided to conduct a more thorough investigation.
When airport police recognized him as a wanted man, Albo-Badri was detained, and following his arraignment before a judge, he was formally arrested and transferred to Maltepe No. 3 Prison in Istanbul. It remains unclear whether he is still incarcerated.
The intelligence note further indicated that two ISIS operatives, identified as Usame Elubeydi (also known as Riyat Farac Avvad Fehdavi or Ebu Abdullah El Eliye) and Abdulcabbar Abdulhadi Shallal Al-Shawi (also known as Ebu Abdullah Selanik), recently relocated to Greece from Istanbul to oversee the smuggling network throughout Europe. They have been collaborating with Albo-Badri in these operations.
The records indicated that both men were registered in Turkey as refugees and issued identity papers by Turkish authorities. Elubeydi, originally from Syria, declared his birth date as January 1, 1984, listed his parents’ names as Abdulaziz and Saniye. Al-Shawi, a birth date of November 4, 1963, possession of an Iraqi passport numbered A8574455 and a Turkish foreign national identity of 99669437036.
Although Al-Shawi, like Albo-Badri, was known to Turkish intelligence as an ISIS operative, he faced no obstacles when traveling through airports in Turkey. He undertook multiple trips from Turkish airports, visiting various countries, and returned to Turkey without incident. He left Turkey on November 13, 2022, yet the telephone number he used while in Turkey remained active even after his exit.
Elubeydi was also identified long ago by Turkish intelligence as an ISIS operative. Two telephone numbers he used in Turkey were monitored in 2023, and his residence in Istanbul’s Fatih district was tracked. There are no travel records from Turkish airports, and he is believed to have illegally been transited to Greece while Turkish authorities were monitoring his every movement.
The investigation conducted by police following an ISIS attack on the Church of Santa Maria (Meryem Ana Doğuş Kilisesi) in Istanbul’s Sarıyer district, on January 28, 2024 revealed that Elubeydi had been in regular contact with numerous Turkish and foreign ISIS suspects who were detained in connection with this terrorist attack.
Following the church attack, Turkish authorities appear to have taken some limited steps to crack down on ISIS operatives in Turkey. Many individuals known to intelligence agencies were detained as part of the Erdogan government’s efforts to mitigate the pressure it faced from the international community for being perceived as lenient toward the terrorist organization.
As the Nordic Monitor previously revealed in 2018, the Erdogan government implemented a policy of allowing foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) to travel to their countries of choice instead of prosecuting them and holding them accountable for their alleged past crimes.
The policy was implemented by the Migration Management Authority (Göç İdaresi Başkanlığı), which operates under Turkey’s Interior Ministry. To date, this policy has facilitated the movement of thousands of FTFs out of Turkey, enabling them to join their jihadist counterparts in terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and ISIS, along with their affiliated and splinter groups.
In one of the rarely publicized incidents, Turkey deported a US national FTF to Greece in November 2019. However, Greek authorities refused him entry, leaving him stranded in the no-man’s land or buffer zone at the Pazarkule-Kastanies border crossing between Turkey and Greece.
The man, an American of Jordanian origin, whose name was partially disclosed as Muhammed Darwis B. (39), is reportedly an ISIS member. He was deported to Greece by the migration agency after he declared that he wanted to go to Greece instead of the US or Jordan.
With a lenient and forgiving policy toward jihadist and radical Islamist groups, President Erdogan’s government in Turkey will continue to pose a security challenge for many neighboring countries, particularly in Europe, where ISIS is striving to reorganize following its defeats in Syria and Iraq.
