The National Intelligence Organization (MIT) released a report on its 2024 activities. Professor Ibrahim Kalın, director of the organization, said in an introduction to the report that the agency succeeded in eliminating efforts to plot attacks against non-Muslim citizens of the country. Kalın did not elaborate but noted that such plots were discovered in parallel with Israel’s expanding attacks in the Middle East.
MIT had uncovered several networks of suspects working for Mossad in the past three years, as well as Iranian suspects plotting to target Turkish Jewish citizens, according to the media reports.
Türkiye has been a staunch critic of Israel’s “genocide” of Palestinians and an advocate of the Palestinian cause. It names Hamas as a resistance movement, unlike allies of Israel, which brands it as a terrorist organization.
Kalın said 2024 was a year marked with extreme global fragility. He also stressed that the endurance of the global system was tested “in our region and other regions” throughout the year in which “peace and stability were challenged by multi-dimensional threats.”
“Lack of security is felt more in the international community in this age of global uncertainty,” Kalın said.
The intelligence chief said Türkiye was closely following security issues emerging amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict that shook the dynamics in the regional and global security architecture and Israel’s attacks in the Middle East. “In this context, the National Intelligence Organization executed mediation efforts and crisis management processes throughout the year,” he said. In this context, he listed the example of the biggest prisoner exchange operation between Russia and Western countries since World War II coordinated by MIT, describing it as a contemporary example of trust-based intelligence diplomacy.
“The organization, acting with the mantra of peace is not possible without justice, contacted relevant parties in 2024 for a lasting cease-fire, reconciliation among Palestinians and a two-state solution, to end humanitarian drama that could not be prevented in Gaza,” Kalın noted, adding that Gaza would remain a main item in international agenda in 2025 as well.
“(MIT) served to secure our country’s strategic interests with a combination of intelligence and diplomacy. Multilateral intelligence diplomacy helped defeat threats in our country and elsewhere,” he highlighted.
Kalın also said MIT acted in line with the country’s “terror-free Türkiye” vision to thwart the activities of terrorist groups, including the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), Daesh, al-Qaida and the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C). “In the fight against the PKK, the group took a serious blow thanks to precision operations neutralizing targets and demolishing critical facilities,” Kalın said.
“Thanks to enhanced operational capabilities, many members of terrorist groups, including perpetrators of terrorist attacks that took place in our country, were brought to Türkiye,” Kalın highlighted.
Inherent to its nature, MIT is shrouded in secrecy and its workings have remained under wraps for decades. However, since 2010, the agency has been undergoing what has been broadly described as a "revolution" through which it launched headline-making cross-border counterterrorism operations, busted spy networks at home and developed a complementary mechanism for Turkish diplomacy. Tracking the agency's profile has thus become a lot easier in the past decade, as opposed to a "darker" mode that characterized the unknown era in Türkiye's intelligence past.
Kalın said the organization enhanced its capacity in cybersecurity, cryptology, artificial intelligence, satellite and signal intelligence to fight hybrid threats more effectively. “It played a key role in ensuring national security with steps taken against cyberattacks targeting our institutions. The organization will utilize artificial intelligence technology more and add momentum to protecting a “cyber homeland,” he said.
