(Financial Times)- In the murky world of Syria’s war economy, Isis has been one of the main drivers of human trafficking during nearly six years of civil war. First, it was the biggest buyer. Now, its fighters are a top commodity.
Isis militants have become one of the most lucrative targets for smugglers and rebel groups — including factions armed by foreign powers such as the US and Turkey.
“Every faction trades in Isis fighters. Don’t believe anyone who says they don’t,” says Abu Yazan, who, like most rebels interviewed, asked for his real name not to be used due to the sensitivity of the subject. A fighter in northern Syria for the Jabha Shamiya rebel group that has been supported by Ankara and Washington, he has shuttled Isis militants from the group’s territory to rebel areas.
At the height of Isis’s power in 2013 and 2014, it was the jihadi group that dominated the trafficking trade. Criminals and some factions sold hostages — particularly journalists and aid workers — to the militants. Isis is believed to have secured millions of dollars in ransom for European hostages and slaughtered others in chilling videos that gave it worldwide notoriety.
But as Isis loses territory to a coalition of international and local forces across its remaining footholds in Iraq and Syria, its militants have become a black market prize.
Captured or defecting Isis fighters can generate profit in several ways. The most common is for a defector to pay a combination of rebels and smugglers to arrange their escape from Isis territory.
The most lucrative opportunity is to capture a foreign Isis fighter whose government wants him back and is willing to pay for the militant. Rebels say Gulf states are often the most keen, sometimes paying millions of dollars.
One name commonly raised in such trades is Abu Ali Sejju, a leader in Jabha Shamiya, who rebels say has made millions from his control of the Bab al-Salama border crossing between Syria and Turkey. He says he has returned Saudi militants to Riyadh via Turkish officials for free. Other rebel leaders, however, insist he received large sums for the handover.
At a popular restaurant in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, he puffs on a water pipe and flips through several iPhones to pull up files he has prepared on some 100 Isis fighters he holds captive.
“I have guys from Pakistan, from Ukraine . . . we had a French woman,” he says.
Mr Sejju insists he offers to return foreign captives to their governments but never takes money. “The truth is that usually, these governments don’t want them,” he says. “I’ll tell them I have a certain group of people and they’ll say they only want this guy and that guy.”
Most rebels say smugglers charge between a few thousand dollars and $10,000 just to cross from an Isis area to rebel territory. It can cost another $10,000 or more to enter Turkey, they say.
“It used to be only the smugglers doing it, but the rebels saw what was going on and thought, why shouldn’t we benefit? We’re the ones who control this territory. So, it’s become a competition,” says Abu Yazan.
“The countries inform Turkey, which will pick up the person from the faction,” says another rebel figure who has been involved in such trades. “There are countries who pay money for it. What you can make [on a foreign fighter] always depends, but usually at least $50,000.”
Mr Sejju claims he was offered big money for two Emirati prisoners with American citizenship.
“They wanted to pay me $10m. I refused . . . It was through brokers and I didn’t want to mess with that. I finally turned them over to the Emiratis — for no money — because they were sent directly to the country,” he says.
Other rebels argue he held out for a higher price — or that he kept the prisoners longer at another country’s bidding.
Trading Isis prisoners is not always about money. It can also be about political leverage and strategic gain — an even murkier realm of the Isis hostage trade.
“You can keep a prisoner for information. That way you show a foreign intelligence agency you have information, that you’re valuable to them,” says another Syrian opposition figure in Turkey.
In addition to these trades, there are near daily exchanges happening between rebels, says a fighter from the Ahrar al-Sharqiya rebel group, which is part of the offensive to recapture the Isis-held town of al-Bab.
He describes a recent case where one of his comrades was captured by the jihadis and the rebels got him back through a complex prisoner exchange. Isis wanted a prisoner held by another rebel faction, which at first demanded that Ahrar fighters give them a better hostage in return.
“We eventually paid money for their prisoner. Bought him straight up,” he says. “Everyone sells.”
Rebels say more than half the Isis defectors seek to go to Syria’s Idlib province to join other jihadi groups that have links to al-Qaeda, suggesting they have not given up on their extremist ideology.
Many rebel commanders and powerful smugglers keep a distance between themselves and the trades. This is how foot soldiers on the front lines like Abu Yazen, the rebel in northern Syria, end up involved in the transactions.
He says he recently took a central Asian family of defectors from the last Isis checkpoint in his area to a vehicle belonging to a rebel group. He says the rebel commander and lead smuggler received about $12,000 between them.
“I walked that family 1km and put them in a car . . . It’s barely any distance at all — a farce,” he says. “That’s what makes you realise this is something wrong. This is not normal. They didn’t want to put themselves in the picture.”
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