Phone records reveal Turkey involvement in Kessab

Media reports based on eyewitness and opposition sources saying that Turkey has become a party to the civil war in Syria have found their way into court proceedings, Asbaresz reports.

During the trial of the Islamic State (IS) militants who attacked Turkish security forces at Nigde last year, court files revealed that Turkey, beyond supplying opposition forces with weapons and ammunition, had also given artillery support to the opposition groups that captured Kessab. The prosecutor obtained striking admissions by tapping the defendants’ phones. According to documents obtained by Ahmet Sik of Cumhuriyet, the wiretapping transcripts reveal that the opposition forces at Kessab informed people in Turkey of the coordinates of Syrian army positions around Kessab, after which Turkish forces shelled those locations.

On March 21, armed Syrian opposition groups entered Turkey from five different crossings and re-entered Syria at the Yayladag border crossing and captured Kessab.

In addition to armed Turkmen groups, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic Front’s most prominent group Ahrar al-Sham, IS-affiliated Shukur el-Izz, Sham el Islam (established by former Guantanamo prisoner Moroccan Ibrahim Binshekrun) and Ansar al-Islam, which has links both to al-Qaeda and IS, took part in the operation to capture Kessab. As clashes continued around Kessab on March 23, a Syrian warplane was shot down by a missile fired from Turkey for violating Turkish airspace. In June 2014, when President Bashar al-Assad’s army recaptured Kessab, including the high ground known as Feature 45, the Turkish army fired on the Syrian side. The Turkish government and military persistently said all firing on Syria after the changed rules of engagement following the shooting down of the Turkish jet were in retaliation for border violations on the Turkish side. The Turkish Foreign Ministry rejected the accusation, saying, “All claims that Turkey has been supporting the opposition forces by allowing them to use Turkish territory or in any other way are totally baseless.”