Turkey - IHH raid, former Guantanamo Bay detainee - high ranking Al Qaida operatives detained, AKP removes police chiefs of operation!

Turkey - IHH raid,  former Guantanamo Bay detainee - high ranking Al Qaida operatives detained, AKP removes police chiefs of operation!(LongWarJournal).By LISA LUNDQUISt.

In an apparent crackdown on support for al Qaeda in Syria, Turkish authorities conducted simultaneous raids in seven provinces today against an Islamic relief organization and arrested at least 23 people, including senior al Qaeda operatives. 

The organization, Humanitarian Relief Foundation (İHH), reportedly the biggest Turkish provider of aid to Syria, is protesting its innocence. 

The operation has reportedly netted several senior al Qaeda operatives, including al Qaeda's Middle East deputy leader İbrahim Şen, who is a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, and the terror group's Turkey representative, Halis Bayancuk.

So far the antiterror operation has resulted in the arrest of 19 people in Van, three in Istanbul, and one in Kayseri, as well as the dismissal of Devlet Çıngı, the chief counterterrorism officer in the border city of Kilis, Hurriyet Daily News reported. 

An account in Today's Zaman said numerous al Qaeda operatives were arrested raids in the provinces of İstanbul, Adana, Kilis, Gaziantep, and Kayseri, and that helicopters were deployed in case clashes erupted.

Reuters cited reports by the Turkish news outlet Dogan that police were also conducting raids against al Qaeda suspects in the cities of Gazientep and Adana, near the border with Syria.

IHH General Secretary Yaşar Kutluay protested against the government crackdown, claiming that"[t]hey are trying to show the İHH as if it is related to terror organizations."

Today's raids, which took place during the runup to the Geneva II peace talks on Syria set to begin on Jan. 22, also come amid recent events raising questions about the Erdogan government's position on al Qaeda forces in Syria.

ICT report elaborated further on IHH in commentary regarding trial proceedings on al Qaeda's millenium bomb plot. Testifying in the proceedings, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the former head of the French judiciary's counterterrorism unit and the head of the US' Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, said that the IHH played important logistical roles in obtaining bogus passports and other counterfeited documents, the trafficking of weapons, the recruitment of jihadists, and their insertion into conflict zones.

The ICT report continued: "[Bruguiere] also stated that the IHH was 'basically helping Al Qaeda when (Usama) bin Laden started to want to target US soil.' 

Importantly, Bruguiere affirmed: 'It's hard to prove, but all elements of the investigation showed that part of the NGO served to hide jihad-type activities ... I'm convinced this was a clear strategy, known by IHH ... it was clearly proven that some of the NGO's work was not charity, it was to provide a facade for moving funds, weapons and mujahedeen to and from Bosnia and Afghanistan.'"

Established in Istanbul in 1992, the IHH is an affiliate of the Union of Good ('I'tilaf al-Khayr), a Saudi-based organization founded in May 2001 that serves as an umbrella group for some 50 Islamic charities. The US designated the Union of Good as a global terrorist organization
in November 2008, stating that it was formed for the purpose of transferring funds to the terrorist group Hamas. The chairman of the Union of Good is Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, an advocate of suicide attacks on Israeli citizens.

Kilis police chief reassigned after raid Amid the controversy, a senior police officer in Kilis was reassigned to another post just hours after the police operation he oversaw earlier in the day. Devlet Çıngı, head of the counterterrorism unit, was reassigned to a post in the juvenile unit.Hmmmm.....Can we now speak of 'State Sponsor of Terrorism'?Read the full story here.More here.