ISIS Financier Obtains Turkish Citizenship in Order to Transfer Terrorists to Europe

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Confidential documents obtained by Nordic Monitor have revealed that a financier for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), who also assists in deploying operatives to Greece and other European countries, has established a car rental business in Istanbul and acquired Turkish citizenship.

The man, an Iraqi national identified as Wisam Hikmat Ahmed Faiq al-Barazanchi, has long served as a fixer and financial manager for ISIS operations in Turkey. He has facilitated the movement of ISIS militants from Syria and Iraq into Turkey and Europe, supporting the organization’s cross-border operations.

Al-Barazanchi initially entered Turkey as a refugee, registered under the foreign national identity number 99291505202. After obtaining Turkish citizenship, he adopted the Turkish name Umut Albarazanchi and was issued national identity number 34019454998. The process by which he acquired citizenship remains unclear since such approvals typically require a thorough vetting by Turkish intelligence and the final consent of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

It is possible that senior government officials may have aided and abetted him, potentially bypassing any red flags that could have surfaced during a review of his Turkish citizenship application.

Al-Barazanchi quickly established an operation in Istanbul, offering logistical support to ISIS, ranging from travel coordination to the preparation of forged identity and passport documents. He maintained close connections with other ISIS cells in Turkey, which had restructured under the name Salman the Persian Brigade (Selman-ı Farisi Taburu in Turkish or SFT).

The SFT was originally called the ISIS Turkish Province, which was subordinate to the ISIS Damascus Province, but the terrorist group changed its name first to Ukasha ibn Mihsan (Ukkaşe Bin Mansan Taburu, UBMT) in August 2022 and later to SFT in September 2022, according to the intelligence documents.

Trade registry records indicate that Al-Barazanchi operates a car rental company, Srt Platinum Oto Kiralama Ticaret Limited Şirketi, founded in July 2019 in Istanbul’s Avcılar district by an individual named Abdullah Jasim Abdullah Abdullah, an Iraqi national. Little is known about Abdullah, who may have been an alias used by Al-Barazanchi himself or potentially another ISIS affiliate.

In September 2022, coinciding with ISIS’s reorganization efforts in Turkey, Al-Barazanchi formally took ownership of the business, acquiring all shares from Abdullah. A year later, he filed paperwork with the Chamber of Commerce to update official records with his newly adopted Turkish name, indicating that he had secured Turkish citizenship by that time.

It appears that ISIS funded Al-Barazanchi’s car rental business to facilitate the travel needs of its members throughout Turkey, particularly in Istanbul. This operation also supported cross-border smuggling activities aimed at transporting ISIS terrorists into Europe via Greece.

Al-Barazanchi has worked closely with senior ISIS operative Abu Nour, an Iraqi national known as Sabah Atta Sulaiman Sulaiman (also referred to as Salim Mohammed Salih Al.Mansor). Abu Nour is married to an ISIS-affiliated Russian woman named Wazeha Ibrahim Hammad Hammad. He has used multiple identities, including on Iranian identity documents under the names Rashid Hassabvand and Mohsen Matoorian. Abu Nour has registered all these identities separately in Turkey as a refugee and has obtained Turkish identity papers for each.

The documents indicate that only two of Abu Nour’s aliases were flagged by Turkish authorities as posing a security threat to Turkey, while the others remain unmarked. This lack of scrutiny has allowed him to travel abroad multiple times, using both land borders and airports to visit various countries, including Iraq and Oman.

Intelligence documents portray Abu Nour as a wealthy individual who maintained multiple safe houses in Istanbul to shelter ISIS members brought from Syria to Turkey. He has been a crucial conduit for ISIS, facilitating the transportation of its operatives to Europe using forged identity papers. His contact in Greece is identified as Abu Ahid (real name not disclosed), who assisted in procuring counterfeit travel documents for ISIS members.

Abu Nour’s wealth is derived from funds collected by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, which were subsequently sent to him in Istanbul to finance safe houses as well as the travel and living expenses of ISIS members in Turkey. He was disbursing funds as monthly allowances to maintain the activity of ISIS networks in Turkey.

The safe houses were also used to shelter ISIS women who were extracted from the al-Hawl (also known as Al Hol) and Roj camps in Syria.

The al-Hawl camp was established in 2016 to house Iraqis and Syrians fleeing ISIS-controlled areas. By March 2019 over 50,000 women and children had been settled in a special section of the camp known as the annex, following the final defeat of ISIS by the US-led coalition. The annex is guarded by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters, who are reportedly open to bribes to allow ISIS family members to escape the camp.

The annex continues to serve as a stronghold for ISIS ideology, operating under strict Islamic sharia law similar to that of ISIS. The SDF is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey due to their alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist group by the US, the EU and Turkey.

Some ISIS members are also sheltered in a camp known as Roj, which is home to many internally displaced persons (IDP) in Syria’s al-Hasakeh Governorate.

According to intelligence documents, Abu Nour facilitated the release of Iranian ISIS member Vian Suleyman, also known as Vian Sulaiman Sabor al-Doskee, along with her daughter Hele Salim (also referred to as Helen Salim Mohammed al-Mansor) in Syria. He then transported them to the Sulaymaniyah region of Iraq.

According to a statement provided by Mijbel al-Shuwaikhi, an ISIS member who was part of a scout team surveying potential targets for a terrorist attack prior to the decision to target the Church of Santa Maria (Meryem Ana Doğuş Kilisesi) in Istanbul in January 2024, Abu Nour is currently residing in Saudi Arabia. Shuwaikhi reported that he was paid $2,000 by Abu Nour for the surveillance work he conducted before the church attack.

ISIS attacked the Church of Santa Maria in Istanbul’s Sarıyer district on January 28, 2024, resulting in one fatality. A post-attack investigation revealed that ISIS had surveyed multiple sites in Istanbul before choosing Santa Maria, prioritizing it for its accessible location and optimal escape routes.

The Erdogan government has a lackluster track record when it comes to effectively cracking down on ISIS networks in Turkey. ISIS has long exploited Turkey for the transfer of fighters, logistics, financing and target identification as evidenced by information from the United Nations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Turkish judicial documents.

For years, President Erdogan’s Islamist government has permitted ISIS and other jihadist groups to use Turkey as a hub due to its proxy wars in Syria. Many ISIS suspects have been released after brief detentions and arrests, reflecting what has been described as a revolving door policy within the Turkish criminal justice system. Furthermore, many members of the judiciary and law enforcement agencies remain sympathetic to jihadist groups, including ISIS.

At times, Turkish intelligence agency MIT collaborated with certain ISIS groups both within Turkey and abroad to orchestrate terror attacks aimed at advancing the political objectives of the Erdogan government. A series of ISIS attacks in Turkey in 2015 and 2016 are believed to have been orchestrated by Turkish intelligence to help Erdogan regain a lost majority in the Turkish Parliament during the November 2015 snap elections and to set the stage for a false flag coup attempt in July 2016.