Following is a transcript of the first interview in the Gladio B interview series. Listen to the audio of the interview here or watch the video in the player below:
0:00 [START] [MUSIC]
0:12 James Corbett: Welcome. This is James Corbett of CorbettReport.com. It is the 30th of January, 2013 here in Japan; and today I’m joined on the line from the United States by BoilingFrogsPost.com founder and editor Sibel Edmonds, our good friend who has been on this podcast many times before. So Sibel, thank you so much for taking the time today.
0:30 Sibel Edmonds: Sure. This is gonna be a very, very interesting interview. I’ve been looking forward to this… to this interview.
0:38 James: Me, too. But it is a bit overwhelming. It’s almost intimidating, because the topic we’re talking about is so large, so vast, involves so many characters that a lot of the audience probably won’t be familiar with, that it’s a bit daunting to know where to even begin with this. So I guess we should explain that we’re picking up from a conversation that I had with Tom Secker a week or two ago on the Corbett Report talking about Gladio and the history of Operation Gladio, the NATO stay-behind operation. So people who want more on the details of Gladio itself and its history as a historical entity in Europe might want to check out that conversation.
1:14 But today we’re going to be picking up from that to talk about specifically how Gladio unfolded and morphed into what it currently is in Turkey and how it’s operating — well, how it’s basically morphed into a different type of operation but is using a lot of the same strategies and methods to continue, well, moving into different areas such as false-flag terrorism in the Islamic terrorism context, and also drug-running. It’s, again, a huge subject to tackle. So perhaps we should start by talking about the way that the NATO stay-behind Gladio operation was transported to Turkey, and they way that it originally started there, as a ultranationalist — or a way to puppeteer the ultranationalists in their terrorist movement.
2:00 Sibel: Sure. One slight correction: and that is, the field of operation for Gladio, well, is pretty much global, with a large concentration — main concentration in the last… I would say… 16… 15, 16 years — Central Asia, Caucasus, and… and the Balkans. And it started with the Balkans. So the field of operation actually has nothing to do with Turkey itself. There is really nothing, because Turkey is where the powers — that being NATO, US, United Kingdom — where they want, these countries want, to be. That’s for Turkey.
2:40 So the fields of operation are basically Central Asia — the former Soviet bloc space, basically. And the operations control centers… of course, the main one, the top layer being in the United States, with major arteries connecting it to United Kingdom;to Britain. And you have Belgium, and then you have Turkey. So — being in, maybe, the primary; then the secondary; and then the third layer being in Turkey via Turkish actors there both military — not nearly as much any longer — but also by very large… what they refer to as the “Islamic factions,” several different Islamic factions.
3:32 James: Well, I stand happily corrected on that point; and you’re right to bring that out. Of course the field of operations is all over that Central Asia, Caucasus region. And we have talked about this a little bit in some of our previous conversations. But today let’s hone in on some of the characters and people who have been connected to this.
3:48 And there are lots of things to talk about. I’m not sure where you want to start, but there are of course operations like the Grey Wolves and others that have been in Turkey for decades that have done this type of operation in the past, and characters like Abdullah Çatlı who has been involved in this and who has been all over in a very interesting life that ended in the Susurluk scandal in 1996 — in quite an interesting fashion. I’m not sure where you want to start that story, but perhaps you could paint a picture for the listeners about how this really developed, and where it went up until that point in the mid-1990s.
4:29 Sibel: Sure. Turkey always was the most important center country in all this Gladio operations before the fall of the Soviet Union. It’s interesting because when I go and read what’s available to public online — which is very, very little on Gladio: that’s why I was ecstatic when you had your interview on Gladio a week ago — and what you see is usually things like Italy. You know, it’s like Gladio and Italy and how it unfolded, how it was disbanded, et cetera, et cetera.
5:03 But you don’t see much on Turkey, and Turkey was the most important, the most important operations center for Gladio. And obviously it’s because of, A., its geographic location. Just take a look at Turkey on the map. And if you’re looking for that period of time before the fall of the Soviet Union, from the Black Sea it goes eastern, you’re looking at all the former Soviet blocs in there. And then again its position within the Middle East, and the other side being connected to Europe.
5:43 So Turkey always had the most position within this Gladio operation until before the fall of the Soviet Union. And that you don’t see. There are very few articles written out there scattered. There’s one good one by Le Monde [Diplomatique] which was concentrating mainly on the actors you just mentioned, Abdullah Çatlı and Susurluk incident. And you have couple of authors in Switzerland and in England who have written about this. Nothing: nothing here in the United States on that.
6:21 So I’ll give you a little bit of history, because you covered a lot of this with your previous guest. But this history is going to concentrate more on the character that we’re going to be talking about and the Turkish side on this, Gladio operations until the fall of the Soviet Union. And in Turkey, there were two prime groups that were working within Gladio network and carrying out some of the most important operations: in Western Europe, in Northern Europe, and mainly in Eastern Bloc. And that was, one, the formal official Turkish military. And that is made up, both Turkish military and the Turkish military intelligence, directly connected to NATO, Brussels, and within the Gladio operation.
7:18 But then, beneath the military — Turkish official military — you had the paramilitary force. Who were these people? And that’s very, very interesting. These people… again, you look at some of the articles and people talking about it, yeah, they are saying they are ultranationalists. But what kind of jobs did they have? Who were these people who were recruited by Turkish military, trained, and absorbed into NATO’s, US/NATO’s Gladio operation?
7:47 Well, a lot of these people, actually… in 1980, they were in jail, OK? They had positions that were… the best way to describe them would be the Godfathers in Turkey. Babas. That’s how they refer to them in Turkey: the babas, which means the Godfathers. They were the top people who ran blackmail, heroin operations. And even back then, it was — Turkey has always been the most important artery in moving heroin into Europe, whether it came through the borders through Iran, or it came via some Kurdish factions coming through Iraq…
8:29 So Turkey has always been important. And these babas ran — military did too. Turkish military did too. But they were also ultranationalists; but they were secularist ultranationalists. They put Atatürk, the father of Turkey, the father of modern Turkey, in basically the place of God. And of course Atatürk advocated secularism — forced secularism. And I have to emphasize this: forced secularism.
8:58 And these guys, even when I was growing up in Turkey, they were very easy to identify. You know, they usually wore this mustache that really resembled the Hitler mustache, and they had salutes that were like — for Grey Wolves, that was like this: [gestures]. And their babas were in jail. And these guys had informants all over: not only in Turkey, but in elsewhere.
9:22 So, as part of Gladio’s plan, Turkish military, Turkish police, Turkish intelligence forces, they took all these notorious — I mean, these are psychopaths, sociopaths, OK? These people are mass-murderers — they took them out of those prisons and they said, “You know what? Now you are going to — with your skills, with what you do, with what you know — you are going to serve the State. And that is Turkey, and the Great Turkishness. And Great Turkishness is also being protected by the West, because the Communist is out there, they’re going to take us over. Then we have these issues with the Kurdish people…”
10:03 “And meanwhile, you can also fill out your own pockets, you know? You’re gonna still be big, you’re gonna still be Godfather, but your main role — and this is why we are releasing you, bringing you out — is going to be serving us for all these operations.” So these guys were removed, they were sent to various centers, including in Brussels. And they received training, both via Turkish military, via US-NATO forces… And they were given diplomatic passports. Not only Turkish passports, but passports from various countries.
10:41 And they still moved, worked in the area where you move heroin; but also weapons smuggling, mass murders, a lot of false flag attacks. Not only inside Turkey, but in other countries as well. And again, your guest talked about some of these: the assassination attempts, the Pope, et cetera, et cetera. And they also filled out their own pockets.
11:09 So these were the characters. Now it’s very interesting. You say — or a lot of people would say, “Well, you know, this was before: during Communism. And we also did things with mujahideens and Bin Laden in Afghanistan. And also it deals a lot with Turkish politics. So why should that interest people here in the United States?” And because this is as much as they know or they read or they hear.
11:36 So what happens after the fall of the Soviet Union? Well, the character you just mentioned, Abdullah Çatlı, he’s one of the main foot-soldiers, one of the main commandos under the military — which is Turkish military — which is under NATO and the United States. One of the most notorious figures. I mean, this guy was responsible in and outside Turkey of hundreds of, thousands of murders. Bombs… in some cases they would just storm a house with medical students in Turkey and they would cut everybody’s heads. And you know, those people were accused of advocating for socialism or communism.
12:17 This guy, he actually ends up on the list of most wanted for — INTERPOL’s most wanted list, OK? — for various reasons. Murders… international murders, not only murders in Turkey. You’re looking at INTERPOL’s most wanted, right? Heroin smuggling, weapons smuggling. So he’s on the top ten most wanted people; and this is at post-Soviet Union. And he ends up in a jail, in a high-security prison in Switzerland. He gets arrested during one of his movement’s operations.
12:53 And when you look at some of the reporting on this guy — including the newspapers, or the articles written on the Grey Wolves — it says, while he was in this high-security prison in Switzerland — this is Abdullah Çatlı — he escaped. He actually escaped by support of helicopter. So you’re in a high-security prison in Switzerland and you mysteriously escape via helicopter. And some more detailed stories from very few reporters who followed up and wrote on this: and that was a NATO-owned helicopter! I mean, this really sounds like a movie plot, something that Hollywood would make. And so, yeah, this is the most wanted INTERPOL guy.
13:40 It gets even stranger. Same guy, while still wanted after he escapes — NATO helicopter from high-security Swiss prison — he mysteriously ends up in England. in London. OK? And again, mysteriously, in 1989, the government — UK government — grants him citizenship. Hah! It’s not even one year since he enters the UK. He is still the most wanted on INTERPOL’s list.
14:13 And then, within a year after that, this same guy, Abdullah Çatlı, flies over, comes to the United States — and this is around 1990, 1991 — comes to Chicago, and is mysteriously given an American passport. Uh, an American Green Card; this is not passport yet. And during all this time he is among the top ten most wanted people by INTERPOL. OK?
14:41 Now, the first question people should ask — especially those who say, ah, this is about some, you know, during Cold War and communism, and it’s a Turkish internal politics — why the most wanted guy by Interpol; a notorious murderer, drug-runner; ends up in England of all the places, and gets a citizenship? Why he comes to the United States and is given another citizenship?
15:07 So that’s the first questions listeners should be asking. And, why Chicago is where he settles? And that’s where he settles. And when he settles there, he had dozens of entries and exits from Chicago. And after the Susurluk scandal, which — I’m gonna get into it — it basically comes out, with all those investigations they had in Turkey that from Chicago, he carried out all these operations in Central Asia, Caucasus, Eastern Europe, Xinjiang province of China.
15:43 So he kept flying, while he’s still most wanted by INTERPOL. OK? We don’t know how and why he got all those citizenships while he’s most wanted, and why he carried four or five diplomatic passports. Nobody gets into those questions. And these diplomatic passports are not only given to him by government of Turkey.
16:03 So he… one of his trips… again, this is very well-documented. This is not conspiracy theory. This is not some Top Secret classified documents any longer, because this stuff all came out during this… after this scandal in Turkey. So he… in 1996, 1995, he is the one who goes to Azerbaijan from Chicago, via Turkey. Goes to Azerbaijan. With a team of several people, less than a dozen, he carries out this attempted assassination against Aliyev. This is the Aliyev Senior, before his son became the President of Azerbaijan.
16:46 And it was meant to be an “attempted,” that would not succeed. Because if you look at Azerbaijan’s position during that same time, 1994 to 1996, before this assassination attempt, you would see that Aliyev was still siding with Russia. It was still the old loyalties. You know, the old loyalties of “We were part of the Soviet Union, and we are still siding with Russia.” Now, this is when the United States, the West, was trying by its proxy, Turkey…
17:25 Why Turkey? They speak Turkish. What language do they speak in these countries, including Azerbaijan? Turkish. They are Muslim. What’s the religion in Azerbaijan and all these ex-Soviet blocs? Muslims. So this was the ideal proxy to go grab countries like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan and say, “OK, say bye-bye to Russia. We want you to be one of us.” Right? Well, of course Russia was doing its part from the other side.
17:58 So during this period when this assassination attempt occurred, Aliyev Senior — the President in Azerbaijan — still was loyal to Russia. And all these different attempts to move him to the other side have not been successful, so they move to plans that included assassination attempts, paired up with blackmails. Because again, during this time, the doors, the borders were open in Azerbaijan. A lot of these Turkish babas, Godfathers, moved in there, and they opened really lavish, interesting casinos. You say, “Casinos, Azerbaijan?” Yeah.
18:36 And guess what: several Aliyev family were given advanced offerings in these casinos, and they collected a lot of debt, OK? And this is people very close to Aliyev Senior. And they started getting death threats saying, “Well, if you don’t pay off these millions and million dollars of debt in your casino gambling debt, we’re gonna take you out.” Then comes the assassination attempt.
19:01 So again, if people were to go and look at the records on this assassination attempt on Aliyev, they would see that Abdullah Çatlı’s name. They would see that Aliyev came out and said, “The people responsible for this were NATO/US via Turkey.” And the Turkish President calling and saying, “No, these were the thugs, the mafia people, you know? They have nothing to do with us.” All these denials. Whatever happened is, Aliyev very quickly switched position after this assassination attempt, OK?
19:33 You fast-forward, look at Azerbaijan. Since 1996, Azerbaijan’s been the closest ally of the United States and NATO. In fact, they are becoming a NATO member. For the last eight years, NATO has been there with a base training them. They’ve been passing the tests. They went from purchasing something like $25 million dollars weapons… worth of weapons from the United States, today to something like four… three and a half… $4 billion dollars of US weapons. So, success. Gladio was successful. It was… who carried it out? Abdullah Çatlı. After he finished, he just shook his hand and said “OK, mission accomplished,” came back again to Chicago.
20:22 Now, I’m going to open a parenthesis here and say, remember: for the past 11, 12 years, I’ve been talking about the center of all these operations that have to do with my state secrets privilege, and people involved, was in Chicago. I have been saying “Chicago” so many times, so I don’t believe anyone is — at least not your listeners or mine — who haven’t heard this: me saying “Chicago, Chicago.” So, he went back to Chicago.
20:47 This was one of his trips. His other trips included going from the other side, through the Pacific: going to China, and then from there going to this area, Xinjiang. This is extremely important: again, Xinjiang, Muslim population. And they are referred — in Turkey, they don’t call them Xinjiang. It’s “[East] Turkestan,” you know? [East] Turkestan. They speak Turkic dialect.
21:12 Guess what? “Up there? A great place. Imagine: they get their independence, we can have our little mini base there. You know how close we are to China?” I mean, they… on the one hand you can say, “Yeah, there’s Taiwan out there.” Well, this is going to be even more important than Taiwan. And then look again: the other important strategic location for Xinjiang or [East] Turkestan, a.k.a. Uyghuristan. You look out there, you see Pakistan, you see Afghanistan.
21:42 This is a very important region. This has been a very important region, prize, for the United States, for the West. We’ve been — we’ve been doing a lot of things there. Every time you hear — at least when I was working there, during this period that FBI was investigating these… not operations there, but people here, the criminals in the US who carried out the operations there… those terrorist attacks, they were orchestrated from a long distance, OK? You go to Turkey, then from Turkey you go to Brussels, to England, and then you go to the United States.
22:22 So all the orchestration is not some minorities or some Muslims get together, suddenly they go and… it doesn’t happen. It didn’t happen that way, at least during that period. And this guy from Chicago was sent to go and organize, carry out a couple of terrorism, uprising events, turn around, back to Chicago again. Back to Chicago again.
22:44 So NATO, the Gladio operation via Turkish military and Turkish Godfather ultranationalist criminal thug paramilitary, continued until around 1996. Towards the period — like, 1994 to 1996 — the decision makers, the top layers of NATO, the US — you know, what we usually refer to as “shadow government,” “the powers” — they were having this debate. They were having this two options in front of them.
23:20 Two plans: which one is better? One is what they did before the fall of the Soviet Union, and what was using ultranationalism — fascism, OK? — against the Soviet Union; against Communism. Versus what they have already seen as a very successful, successful plan. One, they fought in Afghanistan with the mujahideens, Bin Laden group. But then, recently — and this is 1994, 1995, 1996 — they were seeing its use again and again in the Balkans, in the Kosovo region, in Bosnia.
24:02 And this is when we have all these mujahideen: Bin Laden, Zawahiri — think about it, you know? — factions from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan: bringing them to Turkey, train them, bring them over there. It was like, “You know, these ultranationalists? They haven’t been very productive, and we think the mujahideen Islamist factions are going to be much more useful in our main objective of taking over, having more of this ex-Soviet blocs on our side.” OK? “On our side.”
24:36 So this is… during this, sometimes we use them, sometimes we use the fascist Godfather ultranationalists. But then, in nineteen… end of 1996, Abdullah Çatlı — the man we’ve been talking about, the thug who went through Xinjiang and this stuff — he comes to Turkey for another mission that he was gonna go and implement. However, while he’s in Turkey together with some beauty queen and a few other colleagues… they are in Turkey, they’re traveling in this black Mercedes, and they have a car crash, and they die. Everyone in the car except one guy dies, right?
25:21 Well, before the Turkish police or military got to the bodies, the local police — that wouldn’t know anything about who were these people — and the local journalists got to the scene. And, lo and behold, here is the world’s most wanted man: Abdullah Çatlı, the great Godfather, with all his diplomatic passports with him.
25:46 But not only that: together with him you have the Chief of Police of Turkey. I mean, the top police guy. You have incredibly important legit political figures. It was like, “WTF, woman! What are they doing in the car with this guy?” Died.
26:03 Basically, this was… well, in Turkey, even though it had been leaked in little bits and pieces, it was this huge exposure of the thugs — criminal, ultranationalist fascists — actually working with and for the Turkish government. And for right now I’m going to say the Turkish government: that is the Turkish military, the Turkish — the legit Turkish institutions, right? So all the drug-running they were doing, they were all controlled and managed by the state. And all the killing, the terrorisms that they… they’re found responsible for: again, they were executed for the state, OK?
26:44 This was huge in Turkey. It caused an uproar. A lot of documents started leaking. Just like 9/11 Commission, there was this huge commission established in Turkey. Nobody talk about anything else but this Susurluk… they called it “Susurluk scandal” because the car accident took place in Susurluk.
27:04 Now, there was this fear by the West — and this was the United States, the Europeans — like, “Uh-Oh! Now, we know that a lot of these commission members, they are like ours, Thomas Kean, and… but: some of them, or by default, a lot of other” — excuse my language — “crap may come out about our roles, the stuff we did.” “We” being the ultimate bosses.
27:30 And guess what happened? One of the Turkish Gladio handlers in Turkey was an ambassador, United States Ambassador in Turkey at the time, OK? This guy was Ambassador from 1992 until the Susurluk scandal. No other guy than Marc Grossman, the guy I have been saying for the past five years, “You’ve got to look at Marc Grossman.”
27:56 So, with this fear that a lot of secrets — state secrets — were going to get out during this, investigations and journalists digging in — some people were leaking; some people were talking — the United States right away got their man out of Turkey: Marc Grossman. No reason cited. He still had another one-and-a-half, two years left. No reason cited.
28:22 Guess who else was pulled? Another guy who was handling the Operation Gladio, the Turkish militants in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. This man, his name — at the time, a Major — Major Douglas Dickerson. This is the man, if you have read my book, if you know my case, was the one who was married to the spy in the FBI. Major Douglas Dickerson: he still had one-and-a-half years left. He was working for Marc Grossman in Ankara.
28:51 His main task under NATO was operation Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. There were three or four countries that he directed the Turkish paramilitary Gladio operations in those countries. Lo and behold, the same man — this is documented — he is pulled out of his position and immediately sent to a base in Germany — this is American military base — and from there to Brussels. Hah! This is interesting!
29:18 Now, these characters — that’s been talked about in my case for 12 years — were there in 1997. Susurluk happened, they were pulled out. So was the top military man — and this was the top man for the Turkish so-called “counterterrorism” operations commando — was sent on a mission to Washington, DC Turkish embassy. And again, this is documented. Right after Susurluk. They had to get him out. He was a chief guy in the military overseeing these thugs and these operations; these false terror, false flag operations. Not only in Turkey: Central Asia, Caucasus. A lot of Chechen operations; Eastern Europe. So he was pulled. He was sent to Washington, DC. He never went back. Again, nobody cited any reason.
30:10 They took all these important figures, they took them to Brussels, and they took them to Washington, DC. And then it was the decision-making time for the “top guys in the world,” OK? For NATO, US, UK, saying, “Too much exposure. This chapter is closed. Gladio is not closed. We are going to Plan B, Gladio Plan B operations, which… we have already prepared for it some, to some extent. And that is: we are not gonna use paramilitary, we’re gonna use Islamist factions. Who? a.k.a. mujahideen. a.k.a. al-Qaeda.” So…
30:58 James: OK, let’s… so…
30:59 Sibel: Think about Bosnia.
31:05 James: OK, that’s an incredible amount of information. So just to be absolutely clear, I think it is clear that you’re saying that the Susurluk scandal and what happened to Çatlı was — that was not something they wanted to happen, that was not something that was planned. He was not taken out of the picture, but it was as a result of his death that they switched to Plan B. They weren’t going to switch to Plan B until that happened?
31:25 Sibel: Nobody knows the answer to that, because there are so many questions surrounding this accident. First of all, how this guy, unscratched, walked out of the car, OK? And… and there were also some questions about — that they may have been actually dead before the accident. Because there was this autopsy report that their heads — both… you know, a few of them were broken before the crash.
31:48 So, nobody knows who’s responsible. Was that staged? If so, which faction? Is it something that — OK, the top guy said, “We want to eventually eliminate these guys because they are in some ways out of control; we want to go to Plan B?” Was it someone else? We don’t know. And to this day… you know how we scream about 9/11? Well, in Turkey, since 1996, people have been screaming “Susurluk.” Instead of “9/11″ they say “Susurluk,” because a lot of stuff — whether it’s the Deep State — a lot of questions still remain unanswered about it, and that’s one of them. And that is, was it an accident? We don’t know. Nobody knows.
32:30 James: Were any of the other babas similarly rubbed out in interesting incidents?
32:35 Sibel: One interesting character who was, again, a huge figure, and… we used to have a little summer cottage, my husband and I, because went to Turkey every year before all this FBI things happened, whistleblowing. And in this little, small fishing-village city — which is now very fashionable; it wasn’t back then when we got it — but one of the babas had a few hotels and casinos there.
33:00 While, actually, we were there — I was in Turkey, and this is 1999, 1998 — he was assassinated, during the daylight. A lot of these Gladio babas were being taken out. And in some cases, they would get some other babas take out some other babas. So, Godfather against Godfather. Who was managing one Godfather against… but a lot of them were taken out. And again, now, this is when we completely went to Plan B — “we,” United States, NATO — and said, “We’re gonna use mujahideen.”
33:35 What happened to the ultranationalist fascist guys? For a while, some of the main ones were taken out. Some of the other ones were left alone. They stayed rogue for a while, tried to have their own thing. It’s like, “United States kind of turned… is turning its back to us. We were [unintelligible 33:54]. And the same thing is true with the state.” So things, for a while, were kind of murky.
34:00 Then came the current Turkish regime, the Islamic government in Turkey. It’s very interesting, because in the United States a lot of things came up, writings saying US was kind of worried about this Islamic government in Turkey. “What is going to happen in Turkey? Are they going to end up being another Iran?” Et cetera, et cetera. It’s so interesting: it’s like using reverse psychology with people.
34:32 And you get to see that a lot in the Middle East. And that’s… let’s say US wants to install a puppet regime there. One of the first things that has to happen, there needs to be this illusion that US is worried about this regime and that this regime is tough on US or Israel to get the support of the majority, to be legitimized.
34:55 So in many cases, that’s actually a tactic, OK? It’s like you write there, you say you’re concerned, when this is your first choice. This is what you want for Turkey. This is being US wanting this government in Turkey. Since they went to Plan B, that was always the plan. It’s like, “We want this so-called ‘moderate Islamic’ government there.”
35:17 Now, after Çatlı’s death, when we completely… the Gladio went to Plan B mode for Central Asia/Caucasus via Islam. And this Islamic faction, they already had a candidate in mind, a leader. And this man was this preacher, this symbol of fanatic Islam in Turkey. Now, they no longer call them fanatic. Because he’s supported by US, we call him a “moderate” Islamist. And his name is Fethullah Gülen.
35:49 Now, Fethullah Gülen was preaching in Turkey during these 1990s against the secular government. You know, “In Turkey we need to have a government that reflects more people’s value, which is Islam.” You know, “We have to go back to our roots.” It was a different form of ultranationalists. You know, ultranationalists were like, “We don’t want to be part of the EU, we want Turkish culture. In fact, all these Central Asian countries there, we want to get together with them, take over them, and make this great Turkic Republic.”
36:20 Now, this preacher Fethullah Gülen said the same thing, but didn’t say “nation.” He said “Islam — but the Turkish way of Islam, together with Turkish language. We need to go and get our other brothers in Central Asia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, bring them together, and be one great Islamic Turkey. Not fanatic, you know? Moderate, Turkish way of Islamic” — whatever is the “Turkish way of Islamic.”
36:49 Now, the military regime in Turkey hated this guy, so he was wanted. There were already some trials. They wanted to put him in jail, OK? He was going through all this period. Accident happens, and he’s wanted. He’s actually declared criminal, terrorist, anti-secularist by the Turkish government. Yet mysteriously, after Susurluk incident this guy Fethullah Gülen — in a private Gulfstream — ends up in the United States of America; lands here in Washington, DC. Hah! Why the United States? This is a great Turkic Republic, Islamic… why are you coming to US?
37:26 He hasn’t left the United States since. This is since 1997. First he was in Washington, DC area. They gave him a lavish house and let him set up his organization, Islamic organization. Currently, it’s valued somewhere above $20 billion dollars. It’s the largest Islamic organization in the world, headquartered in the United States. OK?
37:51 And I’m gonna come back again, if we have time, to this character. But he’s here in Washington, DC area and Pennsylvania. Who is his next neighbor? His next neighbor… [laughs] This is… I’m laughing. It’s because nobody touches these issues because they are told not to, as far as mainstream media goes. As far as alternative media goes, it’s like, “Man, dude, this is so complicated. I can’t get into that.”
38:17 Next story is this guy called Yusuf Turani. Now, this is the guy who used to be in Xinjiang — Uyghuristan — Turkestan in China. He was taken out of there, he lived for a while in Turkey, then he was… he came to the United States. He was given citizenship. And the State Department brought him, and they had a meeting — and this is in 1997 — and they declared independent country of [East] Turkestan with the President of [East] Turkestan in absentia. But nobody knows this, right?
38:56 So you declare a country and a President in a meeting, at an oval table in the State Department. You say, “We are declaring Xinjiang [East] Turkestan; and here is the President.” Now, he swears… his oath of office is taken inside the building in the State Department in Washington, DC in 1997.
39:12 Well, he’s part of the same Gladio Plan B network, OK? So through him — because he’s the leader in absentia, president in absentia of this country that really doesn’t exist except in the eyes of the United States: [East] Turkestan. So, he was part of Plan B and still is part of Plan B, heading and carrying out operations — you know, through his people and network — goes down in Xinjiang Province of China.
39:39 Now, between 1997, after he moved to the United States, this guy — this preacher Fethullah Gülen, right? — opened up 350 mosques and madrasas in Central Asia and Caucasus. 350, James — in four years! Nobody knows where the money’s coming from. He says these are donations from good-hearted Turkish people. [laughs] That, you know, it means — let’s take a look at it. If… we don’t even get that much… we don’t even collect that much tax in Turkey. Even the government is unable, by force, to collect that much tax. So we got these $20 billion dollars of net worth, so 350 mosques and madrasas.
40:26 But because he preaches modern Islam — you know, not the fanatic Islam — he advocates teaching English to all his students, peoples in the madrasas, OK? You know, these are boys with Qu’ran, and they go like… but they have to learn English. And for the teaching of English for his organizations that he owns, these mosques and madrasas, he needs to send English teachers to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and et cetera, right? But for some reason, hundreds of these English teachers that went, have been going, from the United States to these countries — Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, et cetera — they all have diplomatic passports.
Now, you taught English. Were you given diplomatic passports to teach English in Japan? [laughs]
41:14 James: [laughs] [shakes head]
41:14 Sibel: No? [laughs] This… again, people will say, “This is some allegation.” No! And this is why I have had articles trans… I have translated articles — mainstream media in Europe and in Turkey — and it’s there. It’s already been proven. And they — United States, the State Department — is not denying. They are saying, “Because those countries are, you know, backwards and dangerous, they need diplomatic protections.” Well, hah!
41:41 Anyhow, Plan B Gladio operations. These are… I’m giving the examples of what Plan B has been about. And this was when we — the United States, NATO — started really closely working with Bin Laden and Zawahiri. And… ah, again, from what we knew in the FBI with some of the trips that Zawahiri took, the meetings with the high-level Turkish people in Turkey, several trips that Zawahiri took and went to Azerbaijan between 1997 and 2001. And while in Azerbaijan he met with a lot of US officials. It was sponsored and it held the meetings in Turkish embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan with Zawahiri. Prince Bandar was there… A lot of the stuff that they got, I mean, Bin Laden seemed to be number two: it was all Zawahiri. Believe me or not, it was Ayman Zawahiri. It was Zawahiri that came to Turkey and then went from Turkey to Albania, to Kosovo…
42:50 So anyhow, we — United States together with Turkey, Turkish military, faction of it — started working very closely in these countries with Ayman Zawahiri, Bin Laden, Prince Bandar. Lots of meetings took place, and a lot of it was coordinated by the Turkish proxy. Well, these Turkish proxies were being investigated by the FBI. Not for that reason, for other reasons. But inadvertently, we were getting this information through the recordings of… whether it is, hypothetically speaking, Turkish military being wiretapped or if it’s a Turkish military attaché; diplomatic institutions; other various front organizations.
43:41 So, let’s say you were… via FISA, you were monitoring it — “you” being the FBI — oh, to see if there is some espionage activities, et cetera. But while you are monitoring them, you are coming with mother-lodes of information that has to do… it’s like, “Huh?” — you know?
43:59 Another interesting thing that I have to mention here is — and nobody has ever mentioned this in public — now, in the FBI every single country — OK? — every single country except four were wiretapped, were monitored under FISA. And by this I mean all their diplomatic arms, you know? Let’s say it’s a German embassy and a German military attaché in Washington, DC — OK? — under FISA. Four countries… four countries… except four countries. Four countries were exempt. They could not be monitored by the FBI under FISA; that could be used in espionage and even criminal activities. You want to have a guess what countries?
44:52 James: Can I take a stab at it? Um, I’m…
44:55 Sibel: A lot of people would say Israel. It’s not.
44:57 James: It’s not Israel?
44:58 Sibel: OK, I’ll help you…
44:59 James: I’m going to guess Turkey is on that list.
45:02 Sibel: Yep. It was, until I went… [laughs] I started the official Turkish division for the FBI.
45:07 James: Right
45:09 Sibel: Prior to my employment with the FBI, the Pentagon sent this Lieutenant Colonel woman. She was a Turkish-American woman; NATO, Pentagon liaison. They would send her every two or three months to come and randomly translate certain things for the FBI. Because certain things were being recorded; but FBI couldn’t have an official division, meaning they could never investigate criminally or for espionage. Turkey is one. All right: three more.
45:36 James: Oh no. [laughs] Umm, well, if it’s going to play into what’s happening in Central Asia and the Caucasus, it would have to be, perhaps, Pakistan?
45:47 Sibel: No. We had a pretty good division on Pakistan. You see, this included… that’s why I gave the example of Germany, because this included European countries. It was Turkey, Azerbaijan, United Kingdom — you would think, “English, what?” — United Kingdom is exempt, and for a reason. And that reason… and the fourth one is Belgium. Nobody in the FBI is allowed because there are too much sensitive stuff going on with Belgium, OK?
46:21 So these are… no, Israel, we had a huge division; and FBI was extremely frustrated. They hated how investigations were being stopped, et cetera. But they… we had a huge division there on Israel. And we had so much crap on Israel; they had huge amounts. Unfortunately it could never be used, but they never… they still collect.
46:41 But no, not Israel. But it would be Turkey, Azerbaijan, and UK, and Belgium. And again, as I said — the artery, at the beginning of this interview — it was United States, Belgium, England, Turkey. And… so, anyhow, I… Fethullah Gülen still is here, he’s still in Turkey, he has this huge castle built in Pennsylvania. We have… he has opened…
47:11 James: Sorry…
47:12 Sibel: Yeah
47:12 James: Before we go on with that, I just want to spell that out for the audience out there in case they don’t know. Of course, one of the implications of this: NATO’s headquarters are in Brussels, in Belgium. This is the head of NATO itself. So again, just to spell that out for people in case they didn’t quite get the implication of that.
47:30 Sibel: Correct, absolutely. And during the Susurluk investigation, the… some of the documents that became public: a special office in Pentagon that was responsible for all this Gladio — false flag, false terrorism — operations. It… the exact division was spelled out in documents. I mean, they had a major office. There was a major division that oversees that. And as I said, they work with these thugs and criminals. And the fact that, as people write and talk about it, it was not dismantled and just left there after the end of the Soviet Union, after the fall of the Soviet Union. It went… it went forward with the operations, and in 1997 it went to Plan B.
48:20 And this is why, again, the [unintelligible 48:23] very interesting because during this three, four years’ period, there were dozens and dozens of joint operations with individuals like Ayman Zawahiri and… really, that… it was never called al-Qaeda. It was mujahideen, headed by… And again, it’s very interesting. When, lately, these leaders of these regimes we toppled in these countries, they are… they end up dead so they cannot talk or they end up sick with heart attack. They can’t talk, really, have trials. You know, it’s like with Gaddafi.
48:57 But again, one of the things that took place — and again, Turkey behind the scenes played a major role together with US — was we in the United States asked Mubarak — OK? — to release some of the top fundamental anti-regime figures from prison in 1990. And they came to Turkey, and they became part of this movement. When I say “anti-regime,” it would be… Mubarak had to release some fundamentals who were anti-Mubarak! And… because the higher powers told him that we need these people in Turkey and we have tasks for them. OK? You take a look and see how many times he’s been released, people like Zawahiri.
49:43 Anyhow, we had these, and then 9/11 happened. And this is when… I kept saying, these organizations — OK? — these things come together. And people… people say [unintelligible 49:59] what does it have to do with Turkey? Turkey’s an ally! It would be crazy for someone to come out and say, “You know, you look at NATO…” [chuckles] or, “A certain arm of NATO…”
50:12 Nobody would listen to this person. Think about it. A President — ex-President of Italy — can come out publicly and talk about Gladio, and talk about some of the operatives, and talk about 9/11, and it’s not even mentioned! How could two or three agents from the FBI, you get a couple of people in Pentagon… if they were to come out… [laughs] and they were to come out and tell people…
50:38 Let’s say they are fearless, OK? They say, “Execute me, put me in jail. I’m gonna tell the Americans exactly what I know.” People would say, “He’s crazy,” or “She’s crazy.” The Americans, a lot of people in Europe: they would not be willing to digest information. To them, that’s it. But the answer, yet, is so simple.
51:01 James: Well, let’s spell this out for people. Because you’ve talked about the Plan A of Gladio — which is more, I think, what people understand Gladio to have been, talking about the ultranationalists. But moving into the Plan B era with the Islamization of the Central Asia and Caucasus, and working with people like Zawahiri: I guess the question a lot of people have is, how is this Gladio? Gladio was the stay-behind to counter the Soviet threat. So the idea is, well, after the Soviet threat is gone, what is Gladio’s purpose?
51:32 So I guess the question is, well, what is Plan B? What is it actually attempting to achieve? I think we’ve gotten some indication with that: for example, the Azerbaijani example, trying to move the Azerbaijani government into the US stable. But are there other examples? How is this actually being used and what is its purpose at this point?
51:49 Sibel: OK, first [unintelligible 51:54] even though the term “stay behind” applies, they are ex–… they’re very proactive. This is… think about this: A lot of us say, “OK, Cold War then was over, in 1991.” Cold War was never over. It is not… it still continues. The war over resources — OK? — continues. Not only that it did not end in 1990, it actually accelerated, OK?
52:22 A lot of emphasis, attention today is on Middle East. Why? Middle East oil, right? In less than a couple of decades, the next Middle East we’re going to be seeing is going to be Central Asia. Much worse, much bloodier, with much worse ethnic divisions. You know, divisiveness and conflicts there. Because the amount of natural resources they have — whether it’s in oil, or gas, or minerals — it’s because it’s towards the end of it, what we see in Middle East. They are almost done with… OK, you still have the unexplored regions within the Caspian Basin; you still have Iran, yeah. But the ultimate prize has always been Central Asia and Caucasus.
53:08 If you go back to Brzezinski, if you go back to the older doctrine, you would see that it’s that Eurasia, not… Middle East is the past. It’s over, it’s a finished chapter. [unintelligible 53:20] They like what they are seeing. People — we — are stuck by watching, observing Middle East, and nobody’s paying attention what is happening, how the countries are being set up in Central Asia and Caucasus. How we are already setting up the religious factions there, OK? How we are setting up the ethnic conflicts there.
53:41 You need to do this pre-preparation for the coming assault that’s going forward. It doesn’t happen overnight, you know? People are looking… Mubarak, I remember 1980, 1981. I remember how it was discussed in Iran, in Turkey, of who killed Anwar Sadat? It was… the biggest thing was, it was Mubarak. Who wanted Mubarak to implement that? It was always the United States.
54:10 So… but today it’s like, “Oh yeah, this big bad guy Mubarak, he’s in jail.” It’s… they don’t know the context. They are currently — people — missing the context of what we are doing. 9/11 happens, OK? 9/11 happens. We say — our government says — our partners did it, OK? While we’re working with them, carrying joint operations all over the place in Central Asia and Caucasus, they turned around and they did this to us.
54:38 It’s… as I said, I said it seems complicated. It’s too big to digest, yet it’s extremely simple. And simplicity doesn’t matter: people don’t want to digest, no matter how simple it is. Our partners — look, we are partnering up in Syria — it’s nothing. I’m talking about real partnership. Operations carried out over resources, trying to get these ex-Soviet blocs on our side so they won’t be on Russia’s side. So they won’t be on China’s side. Because, hey: “Communist China.”
55:11 Muslims should side with America, because Islam works in our benefit. What do we have to get these people through our proxy, Turkish NATO Islam? As long as they become fanatics, as long as they’re attached to Islam, they’re gonna say pooh-pooh to China and Russia. They’re gonna side with us. What happened in Afghanistan? It was Islam. It’s always been. It’s been the oldest trick for the UK. It’s been the number one big game: it’s played in the name of religion. You use Islam to get what you want.
55:45 And I’m just amazed. I’m opening newspapers… [gestures opening a newspaper] I don’t actually open newspapers anymore. I open them on my computer. But I still do this motion. [gestures again] I don’t buy newspapers; but count how many times do you see the word “Islam” and “Islamist.” “Islamists carried out this; Islamists did that; Islamists… and this Islamist faction; Islamists…” You know, if you look at some of the conflicts with India and Pakistan, and you don’t see, “Buddhists! Buddhists did that!” The Buddhists… you don’t see “Buddhists did this.” It’s, you know, a particular group; but it’s Islamists.
56:19 James: Absolutely right.
56:20 Sibel: So… but these Islamists…
56:21 James: I mean, we see the absolute Islamization of the area and the 350 madrasas that Gülen has put into that region. And with the English teachers being sent over with diplomatic passports, it all lines up exactly as you’re saying. But there’s another huge piece of this puzzle that we haven’t even touched on yet, and that’s the drug-running, which of course is absolutely central to a lot of the geostrategy of the region. And of course, Turkey: absolutely important in terms of smuggling for the heroin routes.
56:48 A lot of money rests on this. This is such a huge backbone of the international economy. And of course that’s one of the things that we’re not allowed to ever talk about or breach — or broach — in the mainstream media, because it is so central to what’s happening there. So how does this fit in, who are the main players, and where do they fit into this network that’s been created?
57:11 Sibel: Sure. First of all, I have to first say I know the information I know both through the work I did during the short period of time with the FBI that involved the top Turkish operators, their movements of heroin — and this is before 9/11 until a few months after 9/11 — but also my own research; but also my own contacts and sources in Turkey. But as far as my work during my work with the FBI goes and the information that by default we gathered, because some of these Turkish actors under investigations who were being monitored, they were the major players with bringing in heroin.
57:52 And it was, again, done — believe me or not — it’s like, “OK, Turkey, Eastern Europe.” Nobody ever mentions the role and the strategic importance of Brussels! Brussels is extremely important in the transportation and in the distribution of heroin, but nobody would want to think about… [scoffs] “Brussels? European country? Belgium? It just doesn’t fit. We need to find countries like Pakistan and Turkey: yeah, Midnight Express! That makes sense. But UK? Belgium? That’s not… that doesn’t.”
58:26 But one false information that is being put — that I have to correct here — by people, is Taliban ended the opium production, the poppies production, and that after 9/11 it started. Of course, after 9/11 it went from $5 billion worth, or $1 billion dollar worth, to $50, $100 billion: increased tremendously. But they never ceased producing. And I know this first-hand; and I know this through my work with the FBI. It is a known thing: they still did. It was nothing like to the extent, to the scale that it is today, the production of the opium heroin; but it was there.
59:07 However, until 9/11, the majority of that operation — and again, it was nothing compared to what it is today — the biggest share was actually carried out — both operations, taking it to the labs — by the Russians. If I were to throw a number, I would say it was… 70 to 80 percent was under Russian control in 1990s. It was Russian mafiya, certain Russian military elements, certain Russian intelligence elements. They care that they have a lot of network put in place, even after they got out of Afghanistan, and they continued that.
59:48 And something around — again, don’t quote me on the number — if I were to throw a number, I would say somewhere around 20 percent was being smuggled through porous border region into Iran, from Iran into Turkey, some of them through Turkey… Kurdish couriers into Iraq, from Iraq to Turkey where the lab processed it. But it was 20 to 80.
60:13 Now, that turned completely opposite after 9/11, OK? We, the West, via Turkey — Albanians and Turks — the West became — and this is the number one actor at the top being NATO — the biggest shareholder, the top people in this operation that now you are seeing $50, $100, $500 billion: pick your number. And the Russians’ share decreased, and decreased, and decreased, and decreased — to almost nothing. I mean, they still have some, there are some Russian… but it’s nothing. And that’s why, again, this was… this is fact, this is solid data pouring in: who were the actors, how much of the share it was, and how much it is now.
60:59 This is why I wonder sometimes why Russia screams and says, “All this heroin comes into Russia, and we want to be part of this eradication program that has increased the poppy production into… whatever, $50 billion.” I guess we call it now “eradication,” increasing the production. I’m like, maybe it’s a code language. Russia says, “We want in on this.” And maybe to pacify Russia we say, “Yeah, we are eradicating, and the production is going up. Come, we’ll give you another 10 percent. Help us ‘eradicate.'” [gestures quotation marks] In quotes: “eradicate” poppies. [laughs]
61:33 So that’s for… that’s for the heroin portion of it. And while we are at this, on this topic of Russia… and I want to mention this, and I find this mind-boggling: the… our operations — Gladio operations; US, NATO via these Turkish paramilitary groups and later by the Islamist groups — a lot of it had to do with what we were doing with the Chechens and the Chechen movement in the Chechnya carrying out terror attacks in Russia. A lot of it was in Russian borders.
62:05 Now, then we’re going to get into Ergenekon. And I don’t know how much time we have; it may be part two for this interview. Because a lot of these former ultranationalist fascist militaries who used to fight Russia or counter the Soviet on Gladio’s side, after they were basically thrown out, started being assassinated. You know, they were thrown out by NATO and they lost their protections; and these are the military fascists in Turkey. the ones who survived, they had to get themselves to Russia.
62:41 And they defected to Russia. They went and they sought political asylums. You will see several Turkish generals who’ve been in Russia in the past three or four years. With all the trials against the Turkish generals, Ergenekon in Turkey, and with some of these people being assassinated mysteriously — including some of the paramilitary groups — in order to get back; in order to get the asylum; in order to settle and get the Russian government’s protection, of course, they have to give — I’m sure, I’m certain — a lot of information to the Russian government and to FSB.
63:17 And even in 19–… late 1990s, as they were — the Russian forces, that… as they were capturing and killing some of these terrorists — you know, their terrorists — they were confiscating passports, diplomatic passports, Turkish passports, from so-called “Chechens” who’d either received training in Turkey or actually these were part of the Turkish military/paramilitary groups fighting and leading Chechens inside Russia to carry out terror attacks. And the mystery remains that: why Russia has remained so quiet and silent on this, and what is the game there? Or is this actually a game-changer? I don’t know.
63:56 James: That’s an extremely important point in all of this.
64:00 Sibel: I don’t know the answer.
64:00 James: Because this goes right into the geostrategy surrounding the greater conflict that’s going on right now. This, of course, touches on China — with [East] Turkestan, or Xinjiang — and Russia and its share in the heroin trade. This goes right to the heart of that greater geopolitical conflict we see shaping up. So I certainly hope that we can get a second part of this interview, because this is absolutely, truly fascinating stuff.
64:25 But we’ve already been talking for an hour, and we’ve laid a lot of information out on the table already today. So perhaps we can have a second part to this interview. And if there are listeners out there with some questions or comments that they want to make, they can send that to me, and I will bring that into our second conversation on this. But for now, thinking about what we’ve talked about so far, we’ve covered — again — a lot of ground. Is there anything you’d like to say to sort of wrap up what we’ve talked about today, or the situation…
64:53 Sibel: Yes
64:54 James: …that some of these of these actors are in today, like Fethullah Gülen?
64:57 Sibel: Yeah. One last thing I have — and I’m gonna get into those, because they get to be really deep topics, on our next… during our next interviews — but I have been asked by some sources, some people, to go to Russia to meet with some of these people. And I know that there are people — both in Turkey, but also in Russia — who have some very important documents, and they have some very important information that they have tried to get to me in person but they can’t.
65:29 Now I know, hopefully, that some of this will get to them, and it would be good for them to know that there are people, there are journalists outside the United States, outside me that they can trust and they can contact. They can be interviewed. If they don’t wish to be interviewed, they can send information. You know, there are ways. You can do it through encrypted way — I don’t know how much you can trust that — but… or documents can come to a [unintelligible 65:59]. But I want them to know that it is good to have other sources outside the US who are tackling these issues; and they can reach out to journalists like James Corbett — and knowing that this information would get out. And again, those people in Russia, I hope some of you are watching this, and I hope some of you will help us to peel off more layers of this operation.
66:31 James: Absolutely. Well, again, we’ve talked about so much already today, and there’s a lot of information for people to digest. So I will include in the links, in the show notes for this interview, some of the links to some of the articles that you’ve written on Boiling Frogs Post surrounding some of these topics, and some of the other articles that other people have written, so that people can start delving into this in a little bit more, deeper detail.
66:53 And I will be putting out a podcast episode that will encapsulate at least some of what we’ve talked about today — and with Tom Secker last week — this Friday. So people can look forward to that. On that note, I think we will wrap this conversation up here. Again, we have been talking for quite a while already. So Sibel, thank you so much for laying this out for us today, and I’m very much looking forward to our next conversation.
67:16 Sibel: And thank you for tackling this, this topic, which is extremely important. In my prelude, I called it the “master key” to understanding a lot of things, including 9/11, and I’m glad you’re holding that key. Thank you.
67:35 James: Thank you.
67:38 [MUSIC]
67:38 James [voice-over]: This video is brought to you by the subscribers of BoilingFrogsPost.com. For more information on this and other topics, please go to BoilingFrogsPost.com. For more information and commentary from James Corbett, please go to CorbettReport.com.
67:50 [END]
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This transcript by “Adjuvant” is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.