ISTANBUL: Turkey detained 10 people yesterday on suspicion of providing weapons and fighters in the name of Al Qaeda to Islamist rebels trying to topple the Syrian government, highlighting the dilemma Turkey faces as one of the rebel movement’s biggest backers.
Turkey, which is now hosting some 400,000 Syrians who have fled the war, is one of President Bashar Al Assad’s most outspoken critics and has given the rebels shelter and logistical support, although it denies arming them.
A camp dedicated to soldiers who have defected from the Syrian government army sits along Turkey’s southern border with Syria and rebel fighters are able to cross freely back and forth across the frontier. Yet at the same time, it has no desire to let the radical Islamist groups who have joined the rebel cause, notably the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front, operate on its territory or recruit Turkish citizens.
The suspects were arrested in Konya province, some 250km south of the capital Ankara, after police were tipped off that a “radical Islamist group” was persuading young men to join the Syrian insurgents, Turkey’s private Dogan News Agency said.
According to the report, the men were also suspected of supplying handguns and rifles to the rebels, who have been fighting to overthrow Assad in a civil war that started as a peaceful street uprising two years ago.reuters
