Fighting IS not a priority for Turkey: US spy chief US intelligence chief James Clapper warned that Turkey does not place a high priority on fighting Islamic State jihadists and as a result foreign fighters are able to travel through the country into Syria, while a report by the Huffington Post revealed that all It takes to cross from turkey to ISIS-held Syria Is $25. When asked, Clapper told senators he wasn't optimistic Turkey would take a more active role in the war against the IS group."I think Turkey has other priorities and other interests," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Turkish government was more concerned with Kurdish opposition and the country's economy, the director of national intelligence said. "Public opinion polls show in Turkey they don't see ISIL as a primary threat," said Clapper, using an alternative acronym for the extremists. The effect of Turkey's approach was to allow a "permissive" climate for foreign recruits heading to Syria to take arms for the IS group, he said. "And of course, the consequence of that is a permissive environment... because of their laws and the ability of people to travel through Turkey en route to Syria," Clapper said. "So somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 percent of those foreign fighters find their way to Syria through Turkey." The spy chief said some other governments in the Middle East have been reluctant to join the US-led coalition against the IS group because of Washington's reluctance to directly confront the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But the "brutal savagery" of the IS militants, including the beheadings of hostages and the immolation of a captured Jordanian fighter pilot, "have had a galvanizing effect on opinion in the Mideast region," he said. There was more willingness to cooperate with the United States in the war effort, with some Arab countries now sharing intelligence with Washington, he said. The spy chief acknowledged that the United States faced intelligence "gaps" in Syria, as Washington had no embassy or any major presence on the ground. In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the Islamic State group was struggling to find the money to pay for electrical power and other services, Clapper said. "They do not have enough financial wherewithal to provide the services, municipal services that are required to run a city of a million people," he said. "We're seeing signs of electricity outages, shortages of food and commodities." There were signs the IS group was resorting to conscription to fill their ranks after having suffered heavy losses on the battlefield, especially in the Syrian border town of Kobane where large numbers of jihadists were killed in US-led air strikes, he said. "At least" 3,000 IS fighters were killed in Kobane, he said. Meanwhile, a report by the American newspaper found that for a person who wants to be foreign fighter, the last step of the journey is simple: All it takes to cross from Turkey into Syria these days is a smuggler and about $25. As the international community rallies to crack down on the Islamic State group and bumps up security at home in the wake of deadly terrorist attacks, Turkey's "jihadi highway" is still as porous as ever. Just last week, three London schoolgirls traveled to Turkey and disappeared into Syria after allegedly messaging a female Islamic State recruiter on Twitter. Despite Turkey's insistence that it's doing all it can to secure the 500-mile-long border, smugglers, fighters and refugees say that Turkish criminal gangs and bribed Turkish paramilitary police have created an environment where anyone can cross into Syria, for a price. The Huff explained that some smugglers "buy" a particular section of the border for a half an hour at a time from an Islamic State "emir," or prince, who controls the border guards. Turkey insists it has tightened the border and ramped up security, and now checkpoints are commonplace on key roads in southeast Turkey, where armed security personnel stop cars and check trunks for smuggled goods like oil and cigarettes. But attempting to to reel in human smuggling is like cleaning up debris after a nuclear strike, says Turkey expert Aaron Stein, an associate fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute. Turkey actively facilitated the passage of rebels between September 2011 and March 2014 in order to bolster the fight against Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad, he explains, but things changed last spring. The United States got more deeply involved, calling out Turkey on its porous border, and the Islamic State became an unmanageable problem. At the same time, Turkish Airlines said on Friday it was assisting an investigation into three British schoolgirls believed to have gone to Syria to join Islamic State militants. "Turkish Airlines is assisting the relevant government bodies in their inquiries but is unable to respond to or comment specifically in relation to the subject matter of ongoing investigations," it said in an e-mailed statement.
