Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
The Meir Amit
Intelligence and Terrorism
Information Center

August 26, 2010
www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/ipc_e119.htm
[for illustrations etc.]

Erdinç Tekir, IHH operative wounded aboard the Mavi Marmara, participated in
the 1996 terrorist attack on the Russian ferry Avrasya to bargain for the
release Chechens from Russian prisons. Information indicates a past
connection between IHH, and global jihad and Islamist terrorist networks,
including Chechen Islamist separatists.

Overview

The popular Turkish daily newspaper Hürriyet recently reported that Erdinç
Tekir, who was wounded in the fighting aboard the Mavi Marmara, participated
in the terrorist attack on the Russian ferry Avrasya in the Black Sea in
1996 to bargain for the release of prisoners. As far as is known, the attack
was carried out by an armed group of Abkhazian/Caucasian radical Islamists,
which, the Russian media claimed, enjoyed the support of Turkish Islamists.
The terrorists' intention was to conduct negotiations to secure the release
of Chechens imprisoned in Russia.

2. Interviewed by an Islamic website, Erdinç Tekir admitted having
participated in the terrorist attack to bargain for the release prisoners as
part of his activity to promote the Chechen-Abkhazian cause.

3. It was the first proof of the presence of a Turk with a terrorist past
among the IHH operatives who fought against the IDF on board the Mavi
Marmara. Most of the nine operatives killed and the 53 wounded belonged to
IHH or radical Islamic Turkish networks linked to it. On the other hand, no
human rights activists from the West or Arab-Muslim world were found among
the killed and wounded (with the exception of one from Indonesia)1. Among
the wounded were thugs, some of them with martial arts, sports and security
guard experience.2

4. We do not have information indicating that the IHH was involved in the
hijacking of the Avrasya. However, the armed group that took control of the
ferry enjoyed the support of Islamist elements in Turkey (See below). In
addition, Erdinç Tekir admitted to an Islamic website that he became closer
to IHH during the time he was active in the Abkhazian-Chechen cause.

5. Reliable information indicates that in the past IHH had relations with
global jihad and Islamic terrorist networks in the Middle East, as well as
with radical Muslim separatist from Chechnya. Those relations included IHH
logistic support for jihadist terrorist cells in Bosnia, Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan and Chechnya, specifically the provision of weapons and funding.
A Danish research institute which exposed the past connections IHH had with
Al-Qaeda and global jihad networks wrote that the Turkish authorities had
seized documents from IHH which showed that detained IHH operatives had been
sent to fight in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.3

The main points of the Hürriyet article

6. The popular Turkish daily newspaper Hürriyet recently reported that in
1996, Erdinç Tekir, who was wounded in the fighting aboard the Mavi Marmara,
participated in the hijacking of the Russian ferry Avrasya in the Black Sea.
The attack was meant to take hostages to be used as bargaining chips to
secure the release of Chechens imprisoned in Russia (For the full text of
the article in Turkish, see Appendix I).

7. According to the newspaper, a group of nine armed men led by Mohammed
Tokcan hijacked the ferry after it set sail from the Turkish port of Trabzon
for the Russian port of Sochi. They took 177 passengers and 55 crew members
hostage, most of them Russian, and some Turks, and announced that they would
release them in return for 250 Chechens imprisoned in Russia. After
intensive negotiations, in which the Turkish intelligence service MIT
participated, they were convinced to sail the ferry to the port of Istanbul
(January 19, 1996).

8. According to the article, one of the hijackers was Erdinç Tekir, who was
wounded during the operation. He was taken to a Turkish security court and
sentenced to a sentence of almost nine years in prison. In addition, he
apparently served a term of 3 ½ years for other crimes (of whose nature we
have no information). In what was apparently a telephone conversation with a
Hürriyet correspondent, Tekir said that after being imprisoned for 3 ½ years
he volunteered for IHH and participated in the Mavi Marmara flotilla as a
first aid worker.4 He was wounded during the IDF takeover of the ship, held
in Israel for 36 hours and returned to Turkey. In response to the request of
the Hürriyet correspondent for a face-to-face interview, he answered that in
view of the stress of [the Muslim holy month of] Ramadan, he asked the paper
to contact him after the holiday.

9. An ITIC examination showed that Erdinç Tekir was in fact one of the IHH
operatives aboard the Mavi Marmara and that he also participated in the 1996
terrorist attack on the Russian ferry. His name appears on the list of
wounded issued by IHH and on the list of Mavi Marmara Turkish passengers
seized on board. The passenger list identifies him as an IHH activist and
first aid worker who boarded the ship in Istanbul. His name is also on the
list of Avrasya hijackers appearing in Wikipedia (See the article titled
"Black Sea Hostage Crisis"5

Main points of the Dünya Bülteni website interview with Erdinç Tekir (August
21, 2010)

Erdinç Tekir
Erdinç Tekir (From the Dünya Bülteni website )

10. On August 21, 2010, the Islamic Dünya Bülteni website interviewed IHH
operative Erdinç Tekir, of Caucasian origin, whose nickname is Hajarat
("firm rock") (For the full text of the article in Turkish, see Appendix
II). The main points were the following:

1. According to Erdinç Tekir, he had been an IHH volunteer for about
ten years (i.e., after the attack on the ferry). He said that for the past
two years he was an ordinary IHH employee and received a salary.
2. He was introduced to IHH by friends after his release from a
Turkish prison. However, he said he became close to the organization during
the time he was an Abkhazian-Chechen activist (i.e., when he participated in
hijacking the ferry).
3. He admitted participating in the Avrasya hijacking, whose
intention was "to make the voice of Chechnya heard by the whole world." He
claimed that the common denominator between him and Israel was that both
were pirates. However, he said, the ferry hijackers were "pirates performing
a good deed," while Israel, he said, was "a cruel pirate."
4. He said he struggled hard to become a Mavi Marmara passenger
because he wanted to make a contribution. He claimed that the ship was not
carrying terrorists but volunteers and activists. He also made the [false]
claim that IDF soldiers boarded the ship from the sea and air shooting live
ammunition. He said the activists on board the ship used force to resist
without a special system. During the confrontation he was wounded, held in
Israel, released and sent back to Turkey with the rest of the wounded.

Russian media coverage of the hijacking of the ferry Avrasya

11. In November 2009 F. Baderkhan posted an article titled "The exile of
North Caucasus abroad and confrontation in Chechnya" on a Russian-language
website called "The East and Politics, International Relations in the Asian
Countries." According to the article, Chechens who fled to foreign countries
were working to further the Chechen cause. Erdinç Tekir was mentioned as one
of the hijackers of the Avrasya. He is described as originally from Abkhazia
and as having fought in the war between Abkhazia and Georgia from August
1992 to September 1993. The article claimed that the attackers of the ferry
belonged to a pan-Turkish Islamic association called Solidarity with
Chechnya and the Caucasian Peoples.

12. On April 19, 2001, the Russian news agency Tass Itar reported the
Russian security service views on the hijacking of the ferry. According to
the item, the spokesman for the Russian security service said he had
information indicating that the Turkish security service MIT was involved in
the affair, and that the hijackers were connected to it. The news agency and
the Russian media claimed at the time that the Turkish security service
enabled the armed hijackers, led by Mohammed Tokcan, to reach the ferry.
Tokcan was an Abkhazian national living in Turkey, served time in a Turkish
prison and escaped. According to the Russian media, he spent two years in
Chechnya, was pardoned and returned to Turkey in 1999. In 2001 he took
hostages in a hotel in Istanbul and demanded Russia stop its attacks on
Chechnya.

============

1 For further information see the July 6, 2010 bulletin, "Most of the
injured in the confrontation on board the Mavi Marmara have been positively
identified as activists of IHH and Turkish organizations collaborating with
it, most probably Islamist by nature."

2 For further information see the June 20, 2010 bulletin, "Almost all of
the casualties on board the Mavi Marmara were fully identified as members of
Turkish Islamist organizations, most of them of a radical and anti-Western
nature."

3 Information from a study done by the American Evan Kohlman and published
by the Danish Institute for International Studies. For the full text of the
study see the May 31, 2010 bulletin "A Danish research institute exposes the
links the Turkish organization IHH had with Al-Qaeda and global jihad
networks"

4 Among those wounded aboard the Mavi Marmara were a relatively large number
of first aid workers. In our assessment, including them among the operatives
was part of a premeditated plan for a violent confrontation with the IDF, in
which they expected there would be many wounded.

5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_hostage_crisis