KARKEMISH, Turkey — If the three Brooklyn men arrested Wednesday on charges of aiding and plotting to join the Islamic State had boarded flights to Turkey, they likely would have made it to Syria with ease.
For a wannabe foreign fighter, the last step of the journey is simple: All it takes to cross from Turkey into Syria these days is a smuggler and about $25.
As the international community rallies to crack down on the Islamic State group and bumps up security at home in the wake of deadly terrorist attacks, Turkey’s “jihadi highway” is still as porous as ever. Just last week, three London schoolgirls traveled to Turkey and disappeared into Syria after allegedly messaging a female Islamic State recruiter on Twitter.
Despite Turkey’s insistence that it’s doing all it can to secure the 500-mile-long border, smugglers, fighters and refugees say that Turkish criminal gangs and bribed Turkish paramilitary police have created an environment where anyone can cross into Syria, for a price.
Refugees and smugglers cross the Syria-Turkey border on April 23, 2013.
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But the official Turkish forces at the gate aren’t really the ones controlling the border, Abu Hawrain said. A group of four to five rich and widely fear Turkish “gang” leaders run things in Kilis, according to the young smuggler who says he sees them every day.
“The police are afraid of the powerful men,” he continued. “The smugglers pay them directly.”
Hawrain says he makes 75 Turkish lira, or $30, per person he smuggles, but he has to shell out the equivalent of $20 to pay off the Turkish gangsters and border guards. Most of what he makes, he doesn’t get to keep.
When asked what would happen if he kept all of his earnings, Hawrain shook his head: “They’re mafia — they can do anything.”
Zaher Said contributed reporting from the Turkey-Syria border.
