10 foreigners detained near Turkey’s Syria border

Turkish security forces arrested 10 foreign nationals on April 7 for attempting to cross into Syria, Turkish officials have said.

The suspects from Switzerland, Kosovo, Syria, Tajikistan and Russia were seized in the southern Turkish province of Gaziantep, the Gaziantep Governor’s Office said in a statement.

The Swiss suspect, named O.A.M.B, was charged with being a member of a terror organization.
The arrests came hours after the governor’s office announced two Russian citizens believed to have been trying to join militants fighting in Syria had been deported.

In a separate incident, a Tunisian national, who went to Turkish police in Gaziantep demanding his return to Tunisia, was arrested after the police found out that he fought along with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) for a year in Syria.

Ayoub Fekih, 29, said he went to Syria via Turkey illegally on Feb. 18, 2014, and joined the training camp of ISIL near the west of Aleppo. He was wounded in a fight and then decided to return his country. 

A local court in Gaziantep arrested Fekih on Feb 9 on charges of “being a member of a terrorist organization” and faces up to 10 years in jail.

Meanwhile, nine Syria-bound British citizens who were taken into custody on April 1 in the southern provinces of Hatay and Gaziantep, are set to return Britain as soon as official procedures have been completed, Turkish security authorities said April 7.

They were originally scheduled to be deported back to the U.K. on April 4, after the Turkish authorities foiled their alleged attempts to illegally enter Syria and join militant groups, including ISIL.

Turkish intelligence officers said on April 3 that Waheed Ahmed, 22, had flown to Turkey from Birmingham Airport on March 30, while Maboob Yasin, 23, Habib Yasin, 25, Zareeda Bi, 48, Samia Bi, 23, and four children, had flown from Manchester Airport three days prior.      

They were not part of a watch list of alleged people trying to travel to Syria.

Turkish authorities are continuing with the process, which will ban their entry to Turkey in the future.

Cooperation between Turkish and U.K. police has intensified after three British girls went missing from East London in early February and reportedly arrived in Turkey to cross into Syria.

Turkey shares an 800-kilometer-long border with Syria.

 

 

HURRIYET DAILY NEWS