By Ruth Sherlock
Beirut
Telegraph
24 Nov 2014

Exclusive: safe house operatives working for Isil tell the Telegraph they have dropped security restrictions in order to swell the ranks joining the caliphate

The Islamic State in the Levant has relaxed “vetting” procedures for foreign jihadists joining the group, and expanded military training camps in a drive to build its “Caliphate”, safe house operatives and defectors have told The Telegraph.

The group has apparently largely dropped security measures designed to ensure that foreign recruits are not undercover spies, in favour of boosting numbers.

“Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi [Isil’s leader] has called for all Muslims to come to their land, so the process is much less stringent,” said Abu Ahmed, a Syrian living neighbouring in Turkey who runs a safe house and helps funnel jihadists into the country. “Almost any Muslim who wants to travel now can. They want everyone to come.”

Abu Ahmed who spoke to The Telegraph using a pseudonym, agreed to meet in a quiet café in Urfa, a small town on the Turkish border in Syria that is on the primary route for foreign fighters crossing into Syria.

For the past eighteen months he has worked to keep foreigners safe in Turkey, and then helped them to cross to Syria.

“It began like this: a friend in Aleppo rang me and told me there was someone they needed to bring to Syria. He said they would be guests in the country. So I took them to my home when they arrived in Turkey,” he said.

“The first ‘guest’ was a jihadist from Saudi Arabia. The second a Tunisian, and it went from there. Most of them are from the Gulf and the UAE.” Although he had not personally hosted Westerners, he said he had friends who had.

The safe house operative said in the past there were “stringent checks” before he could help someone cross.

His account matched that given to The Telegraph last year by a foreign jihadist who described needing at least three references from members of the jihadist group and a full background check before being given the clearance to join.

Since relaxing the regulations, the numbers of foreigners joining Isil has increased, Abu Ahmed said – despite the US led air strikes against the jihadists positions in Syria an Iraq.

Abu Abdullah, a former bodyguard for Saddam Jamal, the emir – leader – for Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, agreed with the assessment: “Each day foreigners are joining more and more, from all over the world: Yemen, the Magreb and the West,” he told The Telegraph, also speaking with a pseudonym.

The claim is hard to verify independently, but Charlie Winter, a researcher with the Quilliam Foundation, which monitors jihadi activity, said there had been a “lot of chatter” on jihadi forums about the relaxation of the regulations.

The manoeuvre may be in part designed to boost Isil’s standing as the primary actor in global jihad.

The group’s split with al-Qaeda, and Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s leader’s subsequent condemnation, has caused division in the jihadist ranks.

Mr Winter said: “They are trying to improve their image: to go from being a bunch of men too extreme even for al-Qaeda, to jihadists that are fighting the crusader enemy.”

He agreed the strategy appeared to be working: “It seems too that there are more people who are desperate to go to Syria,” he said.
To this end, Isil has also boosted its domestic recruitment drive, expanding its training camps in Syria and Iraq and reportedly “paying” locals to get trained.

A report by the Long War Journal has identified 46 training camps belonging to the Isil, Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria), and several other smaller hardline units.

Compiling video footage, messages posted by jihadists on social media and US military press releases, the group has determined the location of 34 camps in Syria and 12 in Iraq. Most of those belong to Isil.

Abu Abdullah, who fled from the group one month ago told The Telegraph: “I saw a huge number of soldiers in training camps and now they are paying locals to join. They know how to control people: in this time there are more Syrians in need of money.”

The defector spoke of the efforts the jihadists were making to indoctrinate the local population – focusing particularly on children.

“They feed the youngsters lies. They tell them ‘we will attack Rome’ and ‘today there was operation in the US’: none of this is true but they say it to seem all powerful. They brag about being labelled ‘terrorists’ by the West,” he said,

“They are working to destroy a whole generation. The ideas they implant will be hard to remove.”

Ultimately it is Syrian citizens, civilians like Abu Ahmed, that have helped the jihadist group become the power that it has.

Abu Ahmed said he had no previous fighting experience. He came from a religious family and had seen his brother and cousins arrested and tortured by the regimes.

He wanted revenge. He was a pragmatist, who said he helped send foreign fighters to Jabhat al-Nusra as well as Isil, despite the enmity of the two groups.

Many of his friends were doing the same; quietly sending men and weapons to the fighters from Turkey.

With short cropped hair and a leather jacket, a cigarette in his mouth, he kept an eye on his surroundings as he spoke, but seemed generally unconcerned by the illegality of his activities.

“Turkish intelligence know what is happening, but they turn a blind eye,” he said with a smile.

Both the defector and the safe house operative agreed that US-led air strikes had done little to degrade the group.

While some members were killed in the strikes, all the “Walis” – top leaders – left an area well before the attacks, they said.

Abu Abdullah said: “When they evacuate a base, they fly their flag from the top of the building. It is a scarecrow for American bombs.”

The group has continued to commit violent atrocities of mass killings and publish the crimes on You Tube.

But this was seen as a necessary evil by Isil supporters, Abu Ahmed said: “Today their target is to build an Islamic State, and they will work to achieve it – whatever the cost. America will lose the game.”