“Tawhid-Salam” means “Monotheism-Peace.” Tawhid is the Islamic theological term for the absolute oneness of Allah. According to Ali Fuat Yılmazer, former chief of the İstanbul Police Department’s intelligence unit, members of the group “have been able to develop relations at the most senior level” in rapidly re-Islamizing Turkey. If this is true, it explains a great deal about Turkey’s direction in recent years, although Erdoğan has always made clear his disdain for republican rule and preference for an Islamic state. Anyway, infiltration on such a massive scale at such high levels could never, ever happen here, now, could it?
“Iran-backed terrorist cell infiltrated Turkish gov’t at highest level: leaks,” from Today’s Zaman, March 27:
Ali Fuat Yılmazer, former chief of the İstanbul Police Department’s intelligence unit, has claimed that Iran-linked notorious terrorist organization Tawhid-Salam has penetrated deep into the Turkish government in what amounts to international espionage.
“If details of this case file [on the probe into Tawhid-Salam] are revealed one day, we’ll see how a foreign government can act comfortably in Turkey and how it was able to access many senior government officials,” Yılmazer said.
“They [members of the Tawhid-Salam terrorist group] have been able to develop relations at the most senior level,” the former intelligence chief added.
Details of an investigation into the organization, which Yılmazer described as “the stealthiest and most dangerous terrorist organization of recent times” that Turkey has ever faced, have been coming out as Twitter user @ACEMUSAKLARI uploads photographs and video footage from what appears to be the original investigation file onto online portals.
If the allegations are true, Interior Minister Efkan Ala, National Intelligence Organization (MİT) chief Hakan Fidan and Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay are all involved with the Tawhid-Salam terrorist network.
Turkey’s intel chief compromised
The most significant allegation raised by the whistleblower is that Iranian informant Hüseyin Avni Yazıcıoğlu has maintained close contact with Fidan, and that they met several times.
Yazıcıoğlu’s wife, Kamile, has claimed that her husband has connections within MİT, the police and the government. And leaked documents indicate that he kept several passports at home as well as reports he wrote for Iranian intelligence services.
Whistleblower @ACEMUSAKLARI alleges that Fidan was recruited by Iran in the 1990s at Shiite study meet-ups in Ankara. And a court-authorized wiretap recorded on June 18, 2012 revealed shocking details on how Fidan was compromised by Iranian intelligence.
A wiretapped phone conversation shows Iran learned about a high-profile spat within Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government before the Turkish public did. According to the leak, the intelligence chief was passing confidential information on Cabinet meetings to Quds Force commander Sayed Ali Akbar Mir Vekili, which is how Iran found out about a heated exchange between Erdoğan and Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç during the Gezi Park protests of last year two days before the incident was leaked to the press.
Turkish media reported that Arınç had tendered his resignation and stormed out of a Cabinet meeting after a fight with Erdoğan, but was later convinced to withdraw his resignation. Arınç publicly denied the incident, however.
Hakkı Selçuk Şanlı, a suspected member of the network, allegedly helped set up the Quds Force operation in Turkey on orders from then-Revolutionary Guard commander Nasir Takipur in the 1990s. Şanlı was involved in attacks while he was working for Takipur in terrorist plots targeting US interests in Turkey. In police raids against the Tawhid-Salam terrorist network, Şanlı was arrested on May, 13, 2000, but Quds Force agent Takipur fled to Iran. After a trial, Şanlı was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but was freed in 2004 when the Erdoğan government passed an amnesty bill in Parliament reducing sentences for some convicts.
Reportedly, Şanlı kept a low profile for a while after his release — until he was re-engaged by Iranian agents.
According to @ACEMUSAKLARI’s leaked documents, police have since discovered that Şanlı regularly delivers Iranian hush money to the families of the murderers of Turkish intellectual Uğur Mumcu and others killed in the 1990s; that every month, on orders from Mir Vekili, he pays visits to convicts F.Ö., R.A., N.Y. and others; and that Mir Vekili controls a secret cell in Turkey whose membership includes Selçuk Şanlı, Fidan and others. In the 1990s, Şanlı and Mumcu’s killer F.Ö. met regularly at a car dealership in Ankara that is owned by Faruk Koca, and Fidan, a noncommissioned officer in the Turkish military at the time, regularly attended the meetings, the leaks show. Koca, one of the founders of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK party) and later a deputy for the party, is considered a suspect by police in the Tahwid-Salam terrorist investigation.
Koca is generally described as being pro-Iran, and even named his son Khomeini. He was also the landlord of a house Erdoğan rented in the early 2000s. A bug was later found there.
Koca has become wealthy under the Erdoğan government, while he has apparently kept in close contact with Quds Force general Mir Vekili. Koca owns S’LO Cafe, a prestigious coffee and restaurant establishment in Ankara’s Çukurambar district, which is patronized by the new elite in Ankara. The investigation discovered that the top floor of the S’LO Cafe is reserved for special guests, and that Fidan had Turkish intelligence secure this location against possible eavesdropping. These special guests — including Fidan, Koca, Mir Vekili and Şanlı, according to the leaks — use the back door to access the top floor for meetings.
Mir Vekili is also alleged to maintain two safe houses in İstanbul’s Ataköy neighborhood and report directly to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei….