JD: I was told that Islamic state has been wiped out. It looks like they’re trying to come back is that correct?
KT: Here’s what’s actually happening on the ground; when people tell you the Islamic state is coming back it’s fake news. They do not own territory today as they did before we wiped out the caliphate last year. What is happening though is that you have terrorist groups with no territory. You have terrorist groups supported by a nation state Turkey and that’s what’s really significant here.
I’d like to drill down on this a little bit because the threat that we are now facing both in Syria and in Iraq is coming not from ISIS because ISIS really does not exist any longer. It is from Turkey that has taken ISIS fighters under its wings and re-branded them as its own militia groups and they are now preparing to wack the Kurds. It is a move by Turkey to take ISIS fighters to re-brand them and turn them against America’s allies on the ground.
JD: Down through the years has not Tayyip Erdogan had a connection to Islamic state and illegal oil coming out of the Middle East being sold on the black market before?
KT: You bet, that’s absolutely correct. It’s not new for Erdogan to have ties with these groups. What is new is that the threat that people are calling a resurgent ISIS is actually a threat from Turkey.
JD: And then is that not a part of Tayyip Erdogan’s desire to wipe out the Kurds located there in Syria? Could this be a part of his agenda as well?
KT: It is absolutely a part of his agenda to get rid of the Kurds in Turkey and to prohibit them from having any political entity in Syria. But it’s also part of his goal Jimmy to rid Christians from the Middle East. I don’t think Erdogan has given that up. He has openly stated and we have talked about it many times here that he wants to re-establish the caliphate and it was the caliphate that organized that general side against Christians between 1915 and 1919.
JD: Ken Timmerman explaining that Turkey’s President Erdogan is trying to wipe out the Kurds.
