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ANKARA: As part of a joint operation, Turkey’s police and intelligence agency apprehended Bashar Hattab Ghazal Al-Sumaidai, a senior Daesh member codenamed Abu Zeyd, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced late on Thursday.
Al-Sumaidai, long associated with Daesh, confessed that he was a qaadi, or judge, in a Shariah court in the terror group’s ministries of education and justice. He had entered Turkey months ago using a fake ID.
Turkish intelligence probably extracted from him significant information about Daesh’s network in Syria and Iraq before handing him over to judicial authorities, Matteo Pugliese, associate research fellow at Milan-based think tank ISPI, told Arab News.
“After the fall of the ‘caliphate,’ many Daesh members managed to flee to southern Turkey and hide there,” he said.
“Many are still using Turkey as a safe haven, including Istanbul, where they have links with the Central Asian jihadist community from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.”
Experts believe that Daesh still poses a threat to the region. “The attacks against Iraqi and Syrian defense forces show that Daesh is still a threat. It’s also an increasing threat in other continents such as Africa, where it’s expanding,” said Pugliese.
“Of course it’s weak and suffers from competition with Al-Qaeda. The big question is how strong the next Al-Qaeda leadership will be.”
Aaron Stein, director of the US-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, told Arab News: “Daesh has significantly weakened, but its remnants still pose an insurgent threat in Iraq and Syria. However, I think it’s clear that the leadership is in disarray.”
When Al-Sumaidai was captured is unknown, but it reportedly took place in Istanbul’s Sariyer district following seven months of surveillance.
Colin Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group, a global intelligence and security consultancy, said the timing is interesting and the potential consequences serious.
“Daesh is definitely still a serious threat … This is a group that’s seeking an opportunity to reorganize,” he told Arab News.
“As the world remains focused on Ukraine, Daesh is aware that it will be able to continue to exploit existing grievances to recruit new members.”
Clarke expects Daesh to continue exploiting Turkish territory as a safe haven or as a place to launder money.
“I’m not convinced that this latest action is a signal of improved US-Turkish security cooperation, or simply a one-off that allows Turkey to burnish its own counterterrorism credentials,” he said.
“I’m not sure Erdogan has any enduring alliances. It’s very much about ‘what have you done for me lately?’”
In late June, Turkish police arrested in Ankara three Daesh terror suspects wanted by Interpol.
They were reportedly recruiting people with online propaganda and were active members of the group.
Stein said the capture of Al-Sumaidai might have been conducted with intelligence-sharing between several regional actors, although no official details have been given.
The UN Security Council published a report on July 11 in which Al-Sumaidai was mentioned as a senior executive in Daesh.
Levent Kemal, an expert on the Middle East and other conflict areas, said: “He is one of the rare senior executives of ISIS (Daesh) caught alive.”
On Aug. 23, a suspected Daesh sympathizer was shot by police after he wounded two police officers in Istanbul.
More than 300 people have been killed in Turkey in attacks claimed by Daesh.