Back on December 2, 2020, Ukrainian news portal Zaborona quoting Polish journalist Pawel Pieniazek said, Ukraine has become a haven for some Islamic State militants, while it is attacking it is attracting Islamic State militants seeking asylum after losing territories in Syria and Iraq. The country is a good place to hide and wait until you have the opportunity to return safely to your home in the European Union or elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.
It further said:
In November 2019, the special services of three states — Ukraine, Georgia, and the United States — detained Caesar Tokhosashvili in Kyiv. His arrest came as a surprise for many reasons. Caesar is a fighter who is considered to be one of the key figures in the Islamic State (considered by most countries to be a terrorist organization), namely the “Deputy Minister of War of the Islamic State”, Abu Omar al-Shishani of Georgia.
Tokhosashvili, also known as Al-Bara al-Shishani, was thought to be dead. In August 2017, he and his family allegedly died in an airstrike in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor, which was then part of the diminishing Islamic State. But it was later discovered that his death had been faked in order to divert attention from his escape from Syria.
Tokhosashvili later settled in Bila Tserkva, a town 85 km south of Kyiv with a population of over 200,000 people. With the exception of a beautiful park, this is a typical post-Soviet city – that is to say, there is nothing extraordinary about it. The radicalization of Chechen militants – their transition to Islamic extremism – The proximity to the capital, the low cost of living, and some peace and quiet must have led to the fact that a relatively large number of migrants from around the world, including Muslims, have settled in Bila Tserkva. These factors are likely what attracted Tokhosashvili to the city, too.
Caesar probably worked as an unlicensed taxi driver or held a trading post in the market. He moved freely in the area, including in Kyiv. According to the Security Service of Ukraine, whose information is not always reliable, Tokhosashvili remained an active member of the Islamic State during that time. His tasks included recruiting new people, planning attacks, and coordinating the actions of Amniat, the ISIS security service.
Caesar lived in Ukraine for more than a year with his wife and three children. It is possible that he came to the country with real documents, and most likely, no one would have bothered him if the SBU had not received information about Tokhosashvili from the CIA and the Georgian Interior Ministry. Perhaps that is why the secret service’s great success was not widely publicized in the media, and information about the Georgian, which was published by the SBU, was scanty.
According to media report, a very large number of ISIS fighters take help from corrupt border guards in Ukraine in exchange for cash and successfully enter neighboring Poland as refugee. Later they migrate to European Union nations as well as the US.
It said, ISIS fighters, if not included in the Interpol database can enter Ukraine from Syria by plane and pass passport control with real or forged documents or cross the Black Sea illegally by ferry. Once in Ukraine, they can obtain citizenship through paper marriage which enables them in travelling to any of the Western nations as tourists.
For ISIS fighters, Ukraine is one of the safest places left for them after Georgia imposed harsh penalties on “terrorist” and stopped turning a blind eye to those crossing the border, and Turkey began deporting more and more foreigners with suspicious track record. In Ukraine, returning from Syria is not considered a crime, so it is unlikely that militants would be detained. Besides, a large Muslim community lives in Ukraine. Although its actual size is unknown – the number of Muslims are between 300,000 and two million.
According to a August 8, 2017 report published in Hromadske, several hundred ISIS fighters currently are hiding in Ukraine. It said, ISIS fighters had several reasons for choosing Ukraine. They know Ukraine does not extradite foreigners to their countries of origin. Additionally, ISIS fighters feel Ukrainian society had a “neutral” attitude toward Muslims, and it was fairly easy to get forged documents allowing them to move freely in Ukraine.
In addition to Ukraine, another country, which has become a safe haven for ISIS terrorists in the Philippines. According to The Defense Post September 12, 2018 report, as Islamic State has suffered significant losses of its core Syrian and Iraqi territory, those wishing to fight for the group have needed to look elsewhere. The Philippines is one place that appears to have become a more attractive destination for ISIS supporters. Following their declaration of a caliphate in 2014, ISIS started receiving pledges of allegiance, or bayah, from militant groups around the world. This include multiple Philippines-based groups including several Abu Sayeef battalions, the Maute Group, Ansharul Khilafah Philippines, and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. These groups along with others from the region were organized as Islamic State in East Asia. ISIS appointed the Filipino militant Isnilon Hapilon to be the overall Emir, though in practice there was significant operational independence among different groups.
Even before pledging allegiance to ISIS some of these Filipino groups had welcomed foreign fighters, normally from nearby countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. But following their bayah, larger numbers of foreign fighters, including those from outside the region, started to arrive.
On January 31, 2022 British newspaper The Guardian in a report said, “A booming online industry specializing in fake passports with official visas and travel stamps is offering people with links to Islamic State the opportunity to leave Syria and travel onwards to the UK, EU, Canada and the US.
The report further said, one such network, run by an Uzbek with extremist links living in Turkey, is now selling high-quality fake passports for up to US$15,000 (£11,132) purporting to be from various countries. In at least 10 cases the Guardian is aware of, people who illegally crossed the Syrian border into Turkey have used his products to depart through Istanbul airport.
Sellers claim the EU is the most popular destination but say in at least two cases people were able to travel from Istanbul to Mexico on fake Russian passports and, from there, illegally over the border into the US. Niger and Mauritania are also popular destinations, as are Ukraine and Afghanistan.
The Guardian said, Western security officials warned in 2015 that ISIS had managed to obtain significant equipment such as blank passport books and printers to make Syrian and Iraqi passports, which it used to disguise operatives among the more than 1 million people who fled to Europe during the peak of the refugee crisis. ISIS claimed several attacks around the continent shortly after, including the November 2015 attack on the Bataclan theatre in Paris and the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017.
A source from the US Department of Homeland Security revealed another shocking information to The Guardian describing how some of the ISIS members of vanishing from the law enforcement radars by obtaining fake death certificate. It said, to make sure a person disappears completely, for US$500 the Uzbek seller can even offer a Turkish death certificate that can be sent to their home country’s consulate. “Unless you are Abu Bakr Baghdadi [The ISIS leader, killed in 2019] no one would go to the morgue to check if you really died. They would just accept that document and enter it into the system,” the US Department of Homeland Security said.
Once declared “dead” officially through fake death certificate, the ISIS fighter would enter Ukraine with a new name and identity and later succeed in getting Ukrainian citizenship either by bribing organized rackets or enter into paper marriage agreement with a Ukrainian female and become a citizen of the country. Onwards, the same ISIS terrorist would first enter neighboring Poland and then migrate to his/her final destination – the United States or any of the European Union nations.
