No ISIL attack on Turkish tomb in Syria: Military sources

ANKARA

Turkish military sources on Sept. 29 categorically denied any attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on the Suleiman Shah tomb, an official enclave in Syria protected by Turkish troops.

A ranking military source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Hürriyet Daily News the “claims” in The Washington Post story on Dec. 26, 2013 about ISIL surrounding the tomb and taking patrolling Turkish soldiers “hostage” were “untrue and baseless.”  “We do not have any such problems” the source said.

The Suleiman Shah Tomb has been subject to advances by fighting parties since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria three years ago, but none have gone so far as to physically attack it.

Suleiman Shah (Süleyman Şah) was a 12th century military leader of the Seljuk Empire, which was among the first Turkish groups to enter and settle in Anatolia. He is the grandfather of Osman the First, who founded the Ottoman Empire in the 13th century, which lasted for six centuries and was inherited by the Turkish Republic following the regime change in 1923 through the War of Liberation.

According to international agreements, the tomb, which is nearly 40 kilometers inside of Syrian territory, is considered Turkish territory and the enclave is guarded by a symbolic unit of Turkish Land Forces Command.