Fertilizer suited for bombs flows to ISIL territory from Turkey: Report

ŞANLIURFA

Reuters Photo

The laborers work all day, piling bags of fertilizer onto carts and wheeling them through the crossing that connects this southern border town to Syria.

The Syrian town next door is firmly controlled by the extremists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), as is clear from the black flag flying over downtown. 

While the fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, is widely used for agriculture, it has also been used by terrorists around the world — including ISIL— to build powerful explosives. Few people in Akçakale think the fertilizer is meant to help Syrian farmers.

“It is not for farming. It is for bombs,” said Mehmet Ayhan, an opposition politician from Akçakale who is running for parliament. But he did not oppose the deliveries, saying they created jobs in his impoverished town.

“As long as the Turkish people benefit from this — regardless of where it goes on the other side — it is a good thing,” Ayhan said.

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