It seems to me that the main ISIS supply route is through Turkey. Whenever there is an ISIS attack in Europe*, we frequently hear about how the attackers had gone to fight for ISIS, arriving via Turkey and then crossing into Syria. They then return the same way. I haven’t heard of ISIS fighters arriving via non-ISIS Syria, non-ISIS Iraq, or Iran. It seems it’s always Turkey. If I remember correctly, the oil that ISIS sells also leaves via Turkey. So why haven’t they closed the border? The border is just over 500 miles long. If they use 10 border guards per mile, that’s only 5,000 at a time. Let’s say they work 8 hour shifts and have some days off. That number reaches 20,000. But maybe they only need 5 guards per mile, which would make the number 10,000. Either way, for a border that seems to be the main supply route for ISIS, both in terms of goods and people, it seems like closing it would be a good idea. Why hasn’t this been considered?
I didn’t make mention of yesterday’s attack at Ataturk airport because we don’t have definitive information on that yet. My guess is that it will turn out to be the same story, ISIS fighters who crossed to and from via the Turkey/Syria border. None the less, I don’t want this thread to be about whether or not these particular attackers traveled that route.
They’re not marching across the border in ISIS uniform, they’re coming in as refugees. And even if you wanted to close the border to all traffic, border guards need supplies and infrastructure, can’t be awake 24 hours and on a hostile border with an active war on the other side they’re a target, so spacing them out in easily slaughtered small groups probably isn’t all that wise.
I’m sure it would be difficult, but wouldn’t it be a major blow to ISIS? The problem is not just terrorists leaving Syria disguised as refugees. There is the problem of people crossing from Turkey into Syria to fight for ISIS. It’s also likely that most of the supplies ISIS uses come in from Turkey. People crossing from Turkey into Syria wouldn’t have the excuse that they are refugees fleeing a war. Refugees fleeing war also wouldn’t be hauling tankers of oil to sell on the international market. As for the guards being awake 24 hours a day, that’s why I increased the number needed by a factor of 4 to take into account 3 shifts and 1 or 2 days off per week.
Yes, it would be a major blow to ISIS … but it would also be a major blow to Turkey … there’s big profits to be had supplying ISIS and that money is going to Turkish businessmen.
Another problem to consider is the PKK inside Turkey. Stretching out Turkey’s forces not only leaves them vulnerable to ISIS attacks, but PKK attacks from the other side. This is not an “us-against-them” type of affair, we’ve at lease a half dozen interested parties all fighting one another, Russians attacking Turkey, Turkey attacking the Kurds, the Kurds attacking ISIS, ISIS attacking Syria … not to mention an ongoing civil war in Syria and all the different factions within.
It’s a mess … and there’s a few Turks getting filthy rich …
I was trying to come at it more from the perspective of not letting people and supplies cross into Syria. This link has a couple of good paragraphs toward the bottom of the page that claim that ISIS gets it’s it supplies from Turkey. Maybe instead of focusing on stopping Syrian refugees they can focus on stopping people and goods leaving Turkey into Syria.