A rebel fighter falls in Aleppo - but this one was from Istanbul

ISTANBUL // Osman Karahan, an Istanbul lawyer with radical Islamist views, told colleagues he was travelling to Iskenderun near the Syrian border to attend a trial. In fact, he crossed into Syria to join the fight to topple Bashar Al Assad.

The lawyer was shot and killed by regime forces in Aleppo on Saturday. He was buried by fellow fighters in Syria, but a vigil for him is planned in an Istanbul mosque after Friday prayers today.

"He has become a martyr, God willing," said Yavuz Cengiz, a colleague of Mr Karahan in Istanbul.

Opposition politicians from Turkey's border region say the lawyer was one of several hundred non-Syrian fighters, many of them Islamist militants, who entered Syria via Turkey in recent months.

They accuse the government in Ankara of turning a blind eye to the militants and to arms shipments for Syrian rebels, with weapons and ammunition sometimes smuggled in Turkish ambulances.

A member of the Syrian opposition in exile in Istanbul said he had no information about a widespread influx of foreign fighters into Syria.

"There may be some isolated cases," said Mahmut Osman, Turkey representative of the Syrian National Council. "The Free Syrian Army does not need fighters anyway, they need weapons and ammunition."

But one expert in Turkey said some radical Islamist groups regarded the conflict in Syria as a "holy war" because an Alawite elite was fighting to keep power over a mostly Sunni population. He said several hundred militants from Turkey alone had joined the fight in Syria.

The use of Turkish territory as a launch pad for foreign Islamists on their way to Syria would be hugely embarrassing for the government, given Turkey's calls for an end to the violence in Syria and concerns among Turkey's western allies about activities of militant groups such as Al Qaeda in Syria.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, openly supports the political opposition against Mr Al Assad and has been calling on the Syrian leader to resign. But Turkey insists it does not send arms or fighters over the 900-kilometre border.

But the opposition in Ankara says that does not cover the activities of foreign militants. "They move around in cars and buses," said Mehmet Ali Ediboglu of the opposition Republican People's Party, the CHP. "There are hundreds, if not thousands. They come from places like Libya, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Africa."

Mr Ediboglu and Mevlut Dudu, another CHP politician, said foreigners were renting houses near the border to shelter foreign fighters before and after they take part in clashes in Syria. Mr Dudu said Turkish ambulances carried weapons and ammunition into Syria and returned with wounded fighters for treatment in Turkish hospitals.

Mr Karahan, the Istanbul lawyer, was known in Turkey as the legal representative of several high-profile Islamists, among them Louai Sakka, a Syrian said to be a member of Al Qaeda.

In 2007, Sakka was sentenced to life in prison for masterminding a series of lorry-bomb attacks on synagogues and British interests in Istanbul in 2003, in which 57 people were killed. A partial retrial, ordered by Turkey's court of appeals, is continuing, but Sakka is still in prison. Mr Karahan also defended other Islamists in court.

Mr Cengiz said his colleague was killed during a fire fight for the control of a police station in Aleppo.

Mr Karahan's family said he had dedicated his life to "Muslims under persecution in the world and in Turkey", and the armed resistance against Syrian forces was a "holy fight".

There are no official figures about how many foreigners from Turkey and other nations have joined the Syrian rebels, but Veysel Ayhan, chairman of the International Middle East Peace Research Centre, a think tank in Ankara, said there were more than just a few individuals.

"We're not talking about one or two people." More fighting in Syria could attract even more, he said.

Mr Ediboglu of the CHP said the Erdogan government remained passive to the developments because they were in line with Ankara's stance in Syria. "Turkey is a party to the conflict there," he said. "Erdogan has called Syria an enemy state."

But Mr Erdogan's policy carried the risk of widening the conflict, amid concerns that Syria could encourage Kurdish rebels to increase their attacks in Turkey, Mr Ediboglu said.

"We are meddling there, and now they have started meddling here," he said.

tseibert@thenational.ae

Pakistan v New Zealand Test series

Pakistan: Sarfraz (c), Hafeez, Imam, Azhar, Sohail, Shafiq, Azam, Saad, Yasir, Asif, Abbas, Hassan, Afridi, Ashraf, Hamza

New Zealand: Williamson (c), Blundell, Boult, De Grandhomme, Henry, Latham, Nicholls, Ajaz, Raval, Sodhi, Somerville, Southee, Taylor, Wagner

Umpires: Bruce Oxerford (AUS) and Ian Gould (ENG); TV umpire: Paul Reiffel (AUS); Match referee: David Boon (AUS)

Tickets and schedule: Entry is free for all spectators. Gates open at 9am. Play commences at 10am

Gran Gala del Calcio 2019 winners

Best Player: Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus)
Best Coach: Gian Piero Gasperini (Atalanta)
Best Referee: Gianluca Rocchi
Best Goal: Fabio Quagliarella (Sampdoria vs Napoli)
Best Team: Atalanta
Best XI: Samir Handanovic (Inter); Aleksandar Kolarov (Roma), Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus), Kalidou Koulibaly (Napoli), Joao Cancelo (Juventus*); Miralem Pjanic (Juventus), Josip Ilicic (Atalanta), Nicolo Barella (Cagliari*); Fabio Quagliarella (Sampdoria), Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus), Duvan Zapata (Atalanta)
Serie B Best Young Player: Sandro Tonali (Brescia)
Best Women’s Goal: Thaisa (Milan vs Juventus)
Best Women’s Player: Manuela Giugliano (Milan)
Best Women’s XI: Laura Giuliani (Milan); Alia Guagni (Fiorentina), Sara Gama (Juventus), Cecilia Salvai (Juventus), Elisa Bartoli (Roma); Aurora Galli (Juventus), Manuela Giugliano (Roma), Valentina Cernoia (Juventus); Valentina Giacinti (Milan), Ilaria Mauro (Fiorentina), Barbara Bonansea (Juventus)

Volvo ES90 Specs

Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)

Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp

Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm

On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region

Price: Exact regional pricing TBA

Key facilities

Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
Premier League-standard football pitch
400m Olympic running track
NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
600-seat auditorium
Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
Specialist robotics and science laboratories
AR and VR-enabled learning centres
Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills

Director: Shady Ali
Cast: Boumi Fouad , Mohamed Tharout and Hisham Ismael
Rating: 3/5

If you go

The flights
Emirates (www.emirates.com) and Etihad (www.etihad.com) both fly direct to Bengaluru, with return fares from Dh 1240. From Bengaluru airport, Coorg is a five-hour drive by car.

The hotels
The Tamara (www.thetamara.com) is located inside a working coffee plantation and offers individual villas with sprawling views of the hills (tariff from Dh1,300, including taxes and breakfast).

When to go
Coorg is an all-year destination, with the peak season for travel extending from the cooler months between October and March.

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

Skewed figures

In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.