LA Times: Turkish Charity Defends Actions

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Last Updated (Sunday, 06 June 2010 14:07) Written by Administrator Sunday, 06 June 2010 14:05

A 2006 paper published by the Danish Institute for International Studies said the IHH had used its vast charitable network to aid militant causes in the 1990s, including supplying fighters to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Chechnya. Such support was common among Muslim countries and Islamist organizations that shipped aid and arms to defend Muslims in ethnic wars. The paper, written by U.S. terrorism consultant Evan Kohlmann, says that in 1996, telephone calls from IHH headquarters in Istanbul were made to a suspected Al Qaeda hide-out in Italy and militant operatives in Europe. The study cites French counter-terrorism Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere as saying the group was connected to the millennium plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport and that in the early 1990s, IHH leader Bulent Yildrim conspired to recruit "veteran soldiers in anticipation of the coming holy war."