Turkish fighter jets bomb Islamic State positions in Syria

Turkish warplanes pounded Islamic State targets in Syria for the first time on Friday, with president Tayyip Erdogan promising more decisive action against both the jihadists and Kurdish militants at home.

The air strikes, which followed a phone conversation between Erdogan and US president Barack Obama on Wednesday, were accompanied by a series of police raids across Turkey to detain hundreds of suspected militants, including from Kurdish groups.

Turkey has long been a reluctant partner in the US-led coalition against Islamic State, emphasising instead the need to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and saying Syrian Kurdish forces also pose a grave security threat.

But Friday’s attacks, which officials said were launched from Turkish airspace, signalled that Ankara would crack down against Islamic State across the Syrian border, while pursuing the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) - which Ankara describes as a separatist organisation - at home.

“In our phone call with Obama, we reiterated our determination in the struggle against the separatist organisation and the Islamic State,” Mr Erdogan told reporters. “We took the first step last night.”

Ankara acted hours after officials in Washington said it had agreed to let US jets launch air strikes from a base near the Syrian border, dropping an earlier refusal to allow manned American bombing raids.

Turkey has faced increasing insecurity along its 900km frontier with Syria. A cross-border firefight on Thursday between the army and Islamic State, which has seized large areas of Syria and Iraq, left one militant and one soldier dead.

It has also suffered a wave of violence in largely Kurdish southeastern Turkey after a suspected Islamic State suicide bombing killed 32 people, many of them Kurds, in the town of Suruc on the Syrian border this week.

But Mr Erdogan’s critics say he is more concerned with keeping Syrian Kurdish fighters in check, afraid that gains they have made against Islamic State in the Syrian civil war will embolden Turkey’s own 14 million-strong Kurdish minority.

"Even though Erdogan has so far failed to achieve his goals in Syria - the overthrow of Assad - and Islamic State has become a problem, it is nevertheless a convenient instrument for him," said Halil Karaveli, managing editor of The Turkey Analyst, a policy journal.

“Now he has all the excuses he needs to go after the Kurds and also it makes him look very good in the eyes of the US, which will be happy that Turkey is on board in the coalition.”

‘Without distinction’

Three F-16 fighter jets took off from a base in Diyarbakir, southeast Turkey, early on Friday and hit two Islamic State bases and one “assembly point” before returning, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

“We can’t say this is the beginning of a military campaign, but certainly the policy will be more involved, active and more engaged,” a Turkish government official said. “But action won’t likely be taken unprompted.”

One senior official said: “This morning’s air strike and operation against terrorist groups domestically are steps taken as preventive measures against a possible attack against Turkey from within or from outside ... There has been a move to active defence from passive defence.”

Turkey has repeatedly said it would take any “necessary measures” to protect itself from attack by both Islamic State and Kurdish militants.

US defence officials said on Thursday that Turkey has agreed to allow manned US planes to stage air strikes against Islamic State militants from an air base at Incirlik, close to the Syrian border. US drones are already launched from the base.

Mr Obama and Mr Erdogan agreed in their call on Wednesday to work together to stem the flow of foreign fighters and secure Turkey’s border.

Reuters