Eight suspected ISIS members detained in Turkey, planning to enter Europe as refugees

Eight suspected ISIS members detained in Turkey, planning to enter Europe as refugees

While speaking in Manila today, Barack Obama railed out at the GOP, dismissing their concerns over members of ISIS masquerading as refugees and reaching the homeland. Referring to Republican candidates such as Ted Cruz, Obama first mocked them as “scared of widows and orphans,” then said:

They’ve been playing on fear to score political points or to advance their campaigns and it’s irresponsible. It needs to stop because the world is watching.

He’s right. The world is watching — and it’s lucky they are. While he is busy accusing Republicans  of playing politics (a favorite pastime of his own), Agence France Presse reports via Yahoo News that “Turkish police detained eight suspected members of the Islamic State jihadist (IS) group, state media said Wednesday, adding they were planning to sneak into Europe posing as refugees.”

Counter-terror police detained the suspects in Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport after they flew in from the Moroccan city of Casablanca on Tuesday, the official Anatolia news agency reported.

The police found a hand-written note on one of the suspects detailing a migration route from Istanbul to Germany via Greece, Serbia and Hungary, including smuggler boats across the Mediterranean Sea, as well as several train and bus journeys.

The eight men told police that they were just tourists who had been planning to spend a few days in Istanbul and had booked rooms at a hotel, but no reservations were found under their names.

Turkey is the main launching point for migrants coming to Europe, and currently hosts over two million Syrian refugees.

More than 650,000 migrants and refugees, have reached the Greek islands so far in 2015 using the eastern Mediterranean route, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said earlier this month.

The Turkish police are to be commended for ferreting out the bad guys, but with tens of thousands of migrants pouring in from Syria, seeking refuge, the odds are great that someone will get through. It took only 19 Islamic extremists in country to take down the World Trade Center, a section of the Pentagon, and three planeloads of American passengers.

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Ben Bowles

Ben Bowles

Ben Bowles is a freelance writer and regular contributor to "Liberty Unyielding."

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