Turkey pounds Daesh in Syria

Nationwide crackdown nets 300 suspected militants

beylerbeyi (Turkey) — Turkey on Friday vowed to press on with operations against Daesh in Syria and other groups, after its war planes bombed the militants’ positions for the first time.

Following the pre-dawn air raids on the Daesh targets in Syria, Turkish police arrested almost 300 suspected members of the group and pro-Kurdish militants nationwide, in one of Turkey’s biggest recent crackdowns on extremists.

The raids marked a major shift in policy towards Daesh by key Nato member Turkey, which has faced severe criticism from its Western allies for not doing enough to combat the militants.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that the bombing operation had “100 per cent” achieved its goals and had “successfully eliminated the targets” targeted by three Turkish F-16s.

The air raids were ordered in the wake of a suicide bombing blamed on Daesh that killed 32 activists on the Syrian border on Monday and cross-border clashes on Thursday that claimed the life of a Turkish soldier.

The Turkish war planes dropped their charges while in Turkish airspace and did not enter Syrian airspace, the CNN-Turk television channel reported.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said nine Daesh fighters were killed in the attacks and 12 wounded.

“Turkey will show the strongest reaction to the slightest movement that threatens it,” Davutoglu said.

“The operation against Daesh reached its target and will not stop,” he added.

In an apparent bid to crack down on all sources of violence, Turkish police on Friday swooped on suspected members of Daesh group and the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). A total of 297 people, including 37 foreigners, were detained, Davutoglu said, adding that the raids took place in 16 provinces across Turkey.

ankara/elbeyli (Turkey) — Turkish warplanes pounded Daesh targets in Syria and police detained hundreds of suspected militants across Turkey on Friday, a sign that Ankara may have shed its hesitancy in taking a front-line role against radical fighters.

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

But the attacks on Daesh targets inside Syria and the early morning raids across 13 provinces at home, which also targeted Kurdish militants, are among its most robust operations yet. One official said Ankara had moved to “active defence” from a passive strategy.

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

This followed a phone conversation between President Barack Obama and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan.

“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.”

Turkey has faced increasing insecurity along its 900km border with Syria. A cross-border firefight on Thursday between the Turkish army and Daesh left one militant and one soldier dead.

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

One official said the raid has been launched from Turkish airspace. “Turkish fighter jets didn’t cross the Syrian border during the operation,” the official said, adding the targets had been across the border from the Turkish town of Kilis.

The ability to fly manned bombing raids out of Incirlik, a major base used by both US and Turkish forces, against targets in nearby Syria could be a big advantage. Such flights have had to fly mainly from the Gulf.

The US officials declined to give details of the agreement with Turkey, and spokesmen declined to confirm it officially, saying it was up to Turkey to confirm.

Turkish officials declined to comment on the report.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama and Erdogan agreed to “deepen” cooperation in the fight against Daesh militants.

Asked specifically about the use of Incirlik, he told reporters: “I’m not able to talk about some of those issues because of specific operations security concerns.”

Local people on the Turkish side of the frontier reported the sound of the attack. “We heard something last night, but we couldn’t tell if it was air strikes or gunfire,” said Zeki Polat, a 47-year-old who was sitting in a teahouse in the village of Elbeyli.

The attacks are probably the first time that Turkey has publicly said it bombed Daesh in Syria, according to Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

He said the aim of the strikes could also be “to help rebels on the ground control areas near the border instead of Kurdish forces”.

Turkey has suffered a wave of violence in its largely Kurdish southeast after a suspected Daesh suicide bombing killed 32 people, many of them Kurds, in the town of Suruc on the Syrian border this week.

Police rounded up more than 250 people in raids against suspected Daesh and Kurdish militants in Friday’s raids, the prime minister’s office said, adding it was determined to fight all “terrorist groups” equally.

Local media reported that helicopters

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

and more than 5,000 officers, including special forces, were deployed in the operation. Anti-terror police raided more than 100 locations across Istanbul alone, broadcasters CNN Turk and NTV reported.

A Press officer for the Istanbul police declined to comment.

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

Turkish officials declined to comment on the report.

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

Turkey’s stance has frustrated some of its Nato allies, including the United States, whose priority is fighting Daesh rather than Assad. The allies have urged Turkey to do more to prevent its border being used as a conduit to Syria by foreign militants.