Erdogan’s Turkey and Iranian Intelligence

Interesting, could be inaccurate so ymmv

http://20committee.com/2014/09/23/erdogans-turkey-and-iranian-intelligence/

-- snip

The key player in this plot is a shadowy terrorist group termed Tawhid-Salam that goes back to the mid-1990s and has been blamed for several terrorist incidents, including the 2011 bombing of the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, which wounded several people, as well as a thwarted bombing of the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, in early 2012. Tawhid-Salam, which also goes by the revealing name “Jerusalem Army,” has long been believed to be a front for Iranian intelligence, particularly its most feared component, the elite Quds (Jerusalem) Force of the Revolutionary Guards Corps (Pasdaran), which handles covert action abroad, including terrorism in many countries. It also is believed to be behind the murders of several anti-Tehran activists in Turkey in the 1990’s, using Tawhid-Salam as a cut-out.

For years, Turkish investigators who have tried to determine who stands behind Tawhid-Salam haven’t gotten very far, meeting obstruction at every turn, reportedly from the highest levels in Ankara, leading to suspicions that Erdoğan and the AKP have something to hide. In recent months, however, the terror group’s covert mask has begun to fall, thanks to mounting evidence that Iran indeed is pulling the strings behind Tawhid-Salam, which plays a key role in the Quds Force’s global terror campaign against Israel and Western interests.

Similarly, Tawhid-Salam operatives have been observed surveilling an important NATO radar base in Turkey, a sensitive site that monitors possible Iranian missile launches, while other members of the group were witnessed conducting surveillance on the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, apparently in preparation for a possible terrorist attack. The group’s interest in nuclear research materials, discovered during a raid on a Tawhid-Salam safehouse, caused notable alarm in certain circles. Yet, despite the fact that Turkish counterintelligence has repeatedly witnessed Tawhid-Salam members meeting with known Qods Force operatives, nothing was ever done to crack down on the group.

This may have something to do with the fact that Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkish intelligence, is apparently on the Pasdaran payroll too, and may have secret ties to Tehran going back almost twenty years. Rumors about Fidan, a member of Erdoğan’s inner circle, who has headed the country’s powerful National Intelligence Organization (MİT) since 2010, have swirled in counterintelligence services worldwide for years. Israeli intelligence in particular, which once had a close relationship with MİT, has long regarded Fidan as Tehran’s man, and has curtailed its intelligence cooperation with Turkey commensurately, believing that all information shared with Fidan was going to Iran.

Privately, U.S. intelligence officials too have worried about Fidan’s secret ties, not least because MİT includes Turkey’s powerful signals intelligence (SIGINT) service, which has partnered with NATO for decades, including the National Security Agency. As an NSA document stolen and leaked by Edward Snowden explained: “U.S. intelligence reporting in recent years indicates possible Iranian connections with Dr. Hakan Fidan, the head of the MIT/SIB. The possible impact of these connections to the US SIGINT relationship is unknown at this time.”