BirGün enters the jihadist camp in Antep

Nearly 600 jihadist militants of FSA have been placed in Fıstıklı town of Antep-Karakamış by TSK (Turkish Armed Forces) and the Turkish intelligence units. BirGün has entered the camp where entrances and exits are prohibited. While the impact of the Syrian civil war is felt within Turkey more and more, due to the wrong foreign policies of the government, Turkey continue its relations with the jihadists.

BirGün cihatçıların kampına girdi

In the town of Fıstıklı, where the aid trucks and containers of AFAD (Turkish Presidency of Disaster and Emergency Management) have been brought to and a jihadist camp has been set up by Turkey, vehicles without license plates, used by jihadist groups in Syria, catches the attention.

Special report of Hüseyin Şimşek: A jihadist camp in Turkey

The ages of the FSA militants, who are placed in the camp waiting under the monitoring of soldiers and intelligence teams, range from 15 to 35. It is told that the FSA militants waiting to attack Jarabulus have been taken to Fıstıklı, dressed up in camouflage, in passenger buses with Adana license plates. While the intelligence officers whom we talked to stated they could not share any information about the jihadist camp, local sources have asserted that inflow of militants will continue. Jihadist militants are kept on hold at the camp with long barreled weapons and ammunition, along with explosives in great quantities.

Special security zone

As the area between the Soylu and Türkyurdu villages in Karkamış district was declared as a ‘special security zone’, the road around Oğuzeli has been blocked to entrances with cement barricades.

Deployment of armoured vehicles, especially tanks, has continued in Antep since the night before. At the entrance of Soylu village, where military sites have been fortified, AFAD mobile coordination trailer trucks have been placed; and, there is also a holding point of 112 (emergency line) with the presence of 15-20 ambulances.

Fleeing Karkamış

As the Jarabulus commander Abdul Sattar al-Jader was killed on Monday, 20 families belonging to the Kubanat tribe, which took role in the assassination of Al-Jader, fled Karkamış, where they had been living for a while. Since there are plenty of families from the Al-Jader tribe in Karkamış, this fleeing took place rather rapidly.

Tanks are pointed at Jarabulus

Prior to the military operations, there had already been mobility in the ISIL-controlled town of Jarabulus, which is across from the Karkamış district of Antep – the most significant strategic point in the establishment of a Kurdish corridor in Syria’s south. Deployed along the border in Karkamış, the tanks have already had their barrels pointed at Jarabulus. And, the opposition forces coming from Syria are being stationed at the tent camps set up in the special security zones in Karkamış, to where they are taken in buses. AFAD mobile coordination trailer trucks have also been placed in this area with presence of around 15-20 ambulances ready at a holding point of 112 (emergency line).

Exits from the camp prohibited

On the other hand, entrance of thousands of jihadists, who are named as ‘opposition forces’, have also impacted the nut harvest in the region quite negatively. Since the encounter of Syrian opposition forces placed around nut fields and the Syrian refugees placed in the Tent City of Karkamış are tried to be avoided, exits from the camp are prohibited. And, consequently, because the Syrian refugees, who mostly work as field-workers, cannot go to these nut fields in Karkamış, and, because of the artillery fires of Turkish army over Jarabulus, nut harvesting cannot be done.

Jarabulus is being evacuated

There are about 10,000 civilians in Jarabulus who are not allowed by ISIL to exit the region. Settled in this area with the fear of a possible city-battle, civilians in Jarabulus have begun to come to the area known as the southern-Jarabulus through secret passages around the border under the control of YPG (People’s Protection Units); and, they are waiting at the banks of the Euphrates River.

The death of Al-Jader, the commander of Jarabulus Military Council

After the killing of the commander of the Jarabulus military council Al-Jader, Karkamış has gone through great tension, at times in silence. Once the news on the role of the Kubanat tribe in the killing of Al-Jader reached Karkamış, fear of possible clashes between the tribes of Al-Jader and Kubanat has risen. Lesser in numbers, about 20 Kubanat families fled Karkamış. The fact that Ahmed Al-Jader, the cousin of Abdul Sattar Al-Jader who was the commander of a unit with around 300 members in Syria, lives in Karkamış played a great role in the quick fleeing of the Kubanat families from the district.

During the artillery and howitzer fires it started yesterday, Turkish Armed Forces have specifically targeted the Kekirli hill which is across the Türkyurdu Police Station and which is the area that ISIL had stationed its howitzers and heavy armors. As a result of heavy firing, ISIL stations in this area have been destroyed. People of Karkamış wait in worry and fear.

It is also eye-catching that Karkamış, with a population of 10,000, has now turned into a ghost-town. As schools are also closed, almost all of the dwellers of the district left the area. Now, the population of Syrians in Karkamış is higher than Turkish citizens. In Karkamış, there are now only two cafes, two bakeries and a supermarket in operation.

Source: https://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/birgun-cihatcilarin-kampina-girdi-125330.html