Turkish and Syrian intelligence agencies carried out a joint operation on the Syria-Lebanon border Monday to capture a fugitive wanted for espionage against T\u00fcrkiye, ending a 12-year manhunt, according to security sources. The suspect, \u00d6nder S\u0131\u011f\u0131rc\u0131ko\u011flu, was apprehended during a coordinated mission involving T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s National Intelligence Organization (M\u0130T) and Syrian intelligence.<\/p>\n
Fugitive had long history of anti-T\u00fcrkiye activities<\/p>\n
S\u0131\u011f\u0131rc\u0131ko\u011flu was originally sentenced in 2013 to 20 years in prison for the 2011 abduction of two Free Syrian Army commanders, H\u00fcseyin Harmu\u015f and Mustafa Kas\u0131m, who were handed over to the Assad regime. Harmu\u015f later died in custody. In 2014, the convict escaped from an open prison in Osmaniye, southern T\u00fcrkiye, with investigators later pointing to the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FET\u00d6) as having facilitated the escape through manipulated legal records.<\/p>\n
Intelligence work spanned multiple countries<\/p>\n
Following his escape, S\u0131\u011f\u0131rc\u0131ko\u011flu reportedly found shelter under Syrian regime intelligence and was assigned to conduct surveillance activities targeting T\u00fcrkiye. Turkish intelligence tracked him for years using cyber monitoring, surveillance, and intelligence analysis, mapping his movements across Syria, Lebanon, and Russia. Investigators determined he had hidden in Syria before moving to Lebanon\u2019s Jabal Mohsen district and later to Russia\u2019s Krasnodar region, eventually returning to Lebanon via Egypt.<\/p>\n
Coordination on border leads to capture<\/p>\n
When intelligence indicated he would attempt to re-enter Syrian territory, M\u0130T and Syrian intelligence launched a covert border operation. S\u0131\u011f\u0131rc\u0131ko\u011flu was detained while trying to cross between Lebanon and Syria and subsequently handed over to Turkish judicial authorities working with the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office and the capital\u2019s counterterrorism unit.<\/p>\n
Links to terror networks uncovered<\/p>\n
Security sources noted the fugitive had maintained contact with figures tied to anti-T\u00fcrkiye networks, including Yusuf Nazik, a convicted perpetrator of the 2013 Reyhanl\u0131 bombings. Nazik, captured by Turkish intelligence in 2018, later testified that S\u0131\u011f\u0131rc\u0131ko\u011flu had assisted his own prison escape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turkish and Syrian intelligence agencies carried out a joint operation on the Syria-Lebanon border Monday to capture a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[4559,18377,1281,3577,18376,95,10738],"class_list":["post-43757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-syria","tag-espionage","tag-feto","tag-intelligence","tag-mit","tag-onder-sigircikoglu","tag-syria","tag-turkiye"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}