Alleged US Isis member 'marooned between Turkish and Greek borders'

Turkish TV airs footage of person gesturing from no-man’s land as Turkey begins deporting foreign Isis fighters

Bethan McKernan in Istanbul and Julian Borger in Washington
Mon 11 Nov 2019 23.38 GMT
First published on Mon 11 Nov 2019 10.04 GMT

An alleged American member of Islamic State has been marooned in the no-man’s land between the Turkish and Greek borders after the Greek authorities refused him entry, according to a Turkish news report.

The Turkish television channel Haber 7 screened video images of a man dressed in dark clothes waving at the camera from the strip of land between the two border posts.

Jean-Charles Brisard, the president of the Centre for Analysis of Terrorism in Paris, said in a tweet that the video showed how “a Isis jihadist expelled by Turkey to Greece is literally stuck in the buffer zone separating the two countries after Greece’s refusal to allow entry into the territory”.

A state department spokeswoman said: “We are aware of reports of the detainment of a US citizen by Turkish authorities. Due to privacy considerations we have no further comment.”

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