Turkey Has Become the Muslim Brotherhood’s Global Safe Haven — and Terror Headquarters
A new Foundation for Defense of Democracies report reveals how Recep Tayyip Erdogan transformed Turkey from a secular NATO ally into an international hub for Islamist extremism and Hamas financing.
Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s two-decade rule, Turkey has transformed from a secular, Western-aligned democracy into a sanctuary for the Muslim Brotherhood’s most dangerous elements — including Hamas leaders, al-Qaeda operatives, and international terror financiers, according to a new report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). The shift represents one of the most significant geopolitical realignments in the modern Middle East, with Ankara now functioning as what the late Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi called “the capital of the Islamic caliphate.”
The report documents how Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), rooted in the Brotherhood-aligned Milli Gorus movement, has systematically dismantled Turkey’s secular institutions since 2003. But the transformation accelerated dramatically after 2011, when Erdogan abandoned democratic pretenses and began aggressively backing Islamist governments and militias across the region — from Egypt’s short-lived Muslim Brotherhood regime to jihadist groups in Syria.
Hamas’s Turkish Safe Haven
Turkey now hosts between 15,000 and 30,000 Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members and relatives, along with senior Hamas operatives who relocated there after the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner swap. Among them: Jihad Yaghmour, Hamas’s representative to Turkey, who was convicted by Israel in 1994 for kidnapping and murdering an Israeli soldier. Released in the Shalit exchange, Yaghmour now operates an Istanbul-based NGO that hosts senior Hamas figures and serves as a conduit to Turkish intelligence services.
The financial infrastructure supporting Hamas on Turkish soil is vast. A 2023 New York Times investigation explored how Hamas exploits Turkey’s tax loopholes and uses Turkish front companies to preserve its financing network. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Turkish construction firm Trend GYO in 2022 for funneling proceeds to Hamas.
After Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre, Erdogan hosted then-Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul, with reports suggesting they discussed relocating Hamas’s political bureau from Qatar to Turkey.
Al-Qaeda Connections and Syrian Jihadists
Turkey’s extremist connections extend beyond Hamas. The country sheltered Mohammed Shawqi al-Islambouli, a co-leader of Gamaa Islamiya and longtime bin Laden associate whose brother assassinated Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat. Turkish authorities placed Islambouli under house arrest in 2016 — preventing extradition while allowing him to live comfortably in Istanbul.
Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood chapter has also established deep roots in Turkey. The late Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, a U.S.-designated global terrorist who ran a university serving as a Taliban and al-Qaeda recruitment pipeline, resided in Turkey under state security protection until his 2024 death.
In Syria, Turkey helped establish a covert operations center in 2012 to coordinate jihadist attacks on the Assad regime. Ankara’s border policies allowed militants, weapons, and supplies to flow freely. The U.S. Treasury later sanctioned two Turkish-backed Syrian militias in 2024 for abduction, torture, and sexual violence.
Policy Recommendations
FDD recommends the U.S. impose Global Magnitsky sanctions on Turkish officials involved in corruption and human rights violations, designate Turkish entities supporting the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, and classify Turkey’s financial sector as a jurisdiction of money laundering concern. The report also calls for returning Turkey to the Financial Action Task Force’s “grey list” for inadequate terrorism financing controls.
As Erdogan’s Brotherhood sponsorship becomes “a heavily institutionalized network radiating out from Ankara,” the FDD warns that Washington must not exempt Turkey from consequences for “harboring, funding, and defending terrorists.”
Turkey is a good opportunity. If Erdogan leaves, Turkey is the most secular country of the muslim world. They have a lot in common with Israel, and an eventual alliance between both countries would benefit both sides.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the source and origin of the ideology of creating an Islamic Caliphate based on the paramountcy of the Ummah over nation states.
Its influence waned when the charismatic Gamal Abdel Nasser began to promote a Pan Arab unity of nation states but the 1967 defeat in war with Israel put paid to that idea.
Hamas was one of the beneficiaries of the subsequent resurgence of the Muslim Brotherhood but diverged in restricting its territorial reach to pre-1948 Mandate Palestine.
It is proscribed in the USA but not in the UK.