The government’s Syrian policy does not only generate foreign dilemmas and refugee inflows. It also builds new ways of conducting business, cultural structures and ideologies. Turkey's alliance with the jihadists on the combat field has evolved from a purely functional relationship to one that is more organic.
As an example, whilst looking into the profits that have been made from land development in Istanbul's Küçükçekmece district, one discovers a network or relations involved the controversial "Ensar" foundation and the famed Turkish company Torunlar. One also discovers the role of a politician from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in this relationship and how the Syrian conflict has allowed the government to turn into a real estate agent.
It recently came out that a former ISIS executioner has been living in the Marmara city of Bursa working as a natural gas service provider for three years. Another one has been living in Ankara’s Keçiören district – where Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a house – with his family and a Yezidi woman he enslaved. These events are tied both to the war front and to the construction site.
Another recent and telling event took place, again, in Istanbul's western Küçükçekmece district. In the district's Atakent neighborhood, a project called "Terrace Tema" consists of two towers 30 and 40 storeys each. The company that built the project is İnanlar Construction, the owner of which was detained in connection to a "FETÖ" investigation before being released. The owner went abroad and Turkey's Saving Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) seized the company’s assets. The company was known for its 226 projects, mostly luxury ones, it built on forestland. The owner left some 215 million dollars of bank debt and hundreds of victims. Yet he soon disappeared from the agenda.
The architectural project of Terrace Tema was designed by MM Proje. The owner of this company which was founded in 2005 was the head of the development commission of Istanbul’s Ümraniye District Municipality and Istanbul municipality council member İbrahim Öztürk. He frequently made the headlines development permits he signed.
In one of the towers of Terrace Tema, an education company is operating. We will get to the current day but before that, let us go back to February 13, 2013. In Istanbul’s Başakşehir district, in a small apartment, Roshd Consulting, Construction and Food Limited Co. was founded then. The founder was a Canadian citizen called Molham Rateb Al Drobi.
Born in the Syrian town of Homs in 1964, Drobi was a member of the executive council of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. Later, he became one of the founders of the Syrian National Council. He was one of the inceptors of the “The Day After” plan, known as the strategy to topple Bashar al-Assad. Drobi was widely referred to as the “Turkey representative of the Syrian branch of Muslim Brotherhood.” In Turkish press, he was also called Mülhem El Drubi or Droubi.
Nowadays, Drobi has started an online education venture in Canada. He signed a cooperation protocol with Malaysia’s Asia University. On Dec. 6, 2017 he founded the Roshd Academy Education Limited Co. in Turkey.
According to the commercial registry gazette, Drobi's residential address is Terrace Tema. He moved the consulting and construction company he founded in 2013 to the same address. Now, the headquarters of the university and the company are both located there.
Roshd Academy is a so-called "e-university." It is not accredited by YÖK (Turkey’s Higher Education Board) or the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA). It is one of the certificate-giving online education platform and consulting companies that have recently been sprouting. Its objective is to become the virtual education center of the Middle East and targets Syrians in particular.
Drobi’s partner in Turkey is the Sabahattin Zaim University, which is founded by the science foundation İlim Yayma Vakfı, which is as popular as the notorious Ensar foundation.
As a reminder, this science association, which dates back to 1950s became a foundation in 1973. It gained “public interest” status in 1974. The foundation has long been tied to Islamist policy-makers, capital groups and bureaucrats. Amongst its board of trustees is Bilal Erdoğan. And one of the foundation's first financial sponsors was Rabıta, another controversial foundation associated with several scandals that the slain journalist Uğur Mumcu uncovered.
Today it has thousands of hectares of land allocated for its use all around Turkey, dozens of student accommodation facilities in buildings donated by local authorities. In 2010, Turkey's General Directorate of Foundations allocated a 337,000-square meter land to the foundation. Now, it also supports Drobi.
As the Gülen movement, the Muslim Brotherhood and pro-AKP foundations demonstrated, education networks have served as crucial institutional structures for Islamist circles. Such networks work as circulatory systems that allow for the movement of economic, political and ideological interests.
None of this is a secret. Everything is legal. What is happening in the open is a lot of more astonishing than the backstage. As a debate recently arose over cliques fighting within the state, it is worth looking into how those cliques were formed in the first place.