Wiretaps reveal jihadist dedication of suspects

İsmail Saymaz - ISTANBUL

Recordings from police wiretaps of a senior militant known to have been linked with both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) revealed his and his contacts’ dedication to jihad.

Mustafa Dokumacı, who was allegedly involved in bomb attacks in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır and the district of Suruç earlier this year, as well as the Oct. 10 Ankara Massacre, has been under wiretap surveillance within the framework of an investigation into al-Qaeda since September 2013.

Dokumacı was accused of handling recruiting activities for a militant camp called the “Dokumacıs” in Adıyaman, which was later revealed to have links to ISIL.

The suicide bombers in the Oct. 10 attack, which killed at least 102 people, were identified as Yunus Emre Alagöz and Ömer Deniz Dündar, both of whom were members of the “Dokumacı” group.

A wiretap from Nov. 4, 2013, demonstrates how Dokumacı explained that they were fighting in Syria. Noting that they killed 45 people from the other side, Dokumacı says “Thank God,” in this wiretap. The wiretap reveals that Dokumacı was in the Syrian town of Tal Abyad on the Turkish border and was accompanied by his spouse as well as by militants who came from Adıyaman.

During the same conversation on Nov. 4, 2013, Dokumacı said their group was “badly outflanked down by a crescent tactic.” “There were martyrs, but not from us, from [among] Arabs and East Turkestan,” he said.

A wiretap from one day earlier reveals that Dokumacı sent a night vision device and a bag full of bullets to his contacts, a group of three.

The province of Adıyaman has become notorious in Turkey as a site of radicalism among poor youths. Last year, the Adıyaman Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a case against three people – Mehmet İşbar, Salih Küçüktaş and Dokumacı – on charges of having links to al-Qaeda. The case is still ongoing.

İşbar, Küçüktaş and Dokumacı were reported to be tried without arrest, but the investigation launched in the same case against 19 people, including the Dündar brothers and the Suruç bombing suspect, was later closed without coming to trial.

Şeyh Abdurrahman Alagöz was implicated in the deadly Suruç bombing that killed 33 members of a socialist youth group and wounded more than 100 on July 20.

At least 16 other suspects, including Kasım Dere, Mehmet Işık, Mehmet Mustafa Çevik, Yakup Aktulum and Rıdvan Yaman, who are listed in the roster of wanted suspects prepared by the national police force and the National Intelligence Agency (MİT), were also cleared in the investigation into the Dokumacı group.