Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele

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Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele (abbr. JİTEM, in English: Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terror) is a wing of the Turkish Gendarmerie, charged with gathering anti-terrorist intelligence. It has functioned mostly against PKK.

JİTEM, is a very controversial organization. Officially, it does not even exist. Commanders in the Turkish Gendarmerie repeatedly denied the existence of an overarching intelligence organization within the gendarmerie; officially or inofficially; legally or illegally; named JİTEM or otherwise. Officially the intelligence personnel in the Turkish Gendarmerie are organized in small detachments (called intelligence teams) answerable to their local commander, and people who claims to be or are purported to be JİTEM operatives are either rogue elements or impostors. Intelligence efforts of the gendarmerie is coordinated by Intelligence Group Command (Turkish: İstihbarat Grup Komutanlığı).

Numerous people who claims to be or are purported to be JİTEM operatives has been accused of crimes such as kidnapping, intimidation, and extrajudicial killings of alleged PKK operatives. (See Cem Ersever, Şemdinli#Bombings) Some alleged members are accused running rackets such as extortion for personal gain.(See Yeşil)

Among the alleged members are ex-PKK-operatives (Turkish: İtirafçı), besides NCOs and a few officers of the Gendarmerie. A criminal court in Diyarbakır has ruled in a case in 2006 that 11 ex-PKK-operatives charged with kidnapping, assassination, and bombing are military personnel and should be tried in a military court. [1]

Although gendarmerie intelligence most commonly associated with criminal activities in the public mind, its operatives facilitate many sting operations against arms and drugs trafficking.