‘We will not stop’, Turkey warns Isil after first air strikes across border
Ankara sends jets to fire on jihadist positions in Syria, as it allows US to mount attacks from its airbases
TURKEY went on the offensive last night across the Middle East, bombing both Isil and Kurdish positions after a week of troubles which threatened to spread the region’s violence across its southern borders.
Fighter jets based at the Pirinçlik Air Base near Diyarbakir in the south-east of the country attacked Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (Isil) for the second time overnight, after earlier striking a base and supply dump just over the border in Syria.
Combined with an announcement that it was allowing US jets to use the Pirinçlik base and the major US air base at Incirlik, close to the Syrian border, for bombing missions against Isil, the action seemed to be a decisive break to join forces with other groups and nations combating the jihadists.
However, last night the Kurdish guerrilla group the PKK, which has campaigned for autonomy from Turkey for four decades but is now also fighting Isil, said Turkish jets had bombed its rear bases over the border in northern Iraq.
“Turkish warplanes started bombing our positions near the border, accompanied by heavy artillery shelling,” a PKK spokesman said. The first strike, early yesterday morning, was said to have killed at least nine militants. Although the Turkish authorities did not give full details, sources inside Syria said the target was an Isil base just south of the border. The F-16 jets were said to have fired missiles from inside Turkish air space. The raids were a response to months of pressure on Turkey to take action against Isil, which has recruited widely in the country and used the porous border to smuggle men and arms into Isil-held territory in Syria and Iraq.
The policy of Turkey’s ruling party, the Islamist AKP, of leaving borders open has been heavily criticised by Turkey’s western allies and the Kurds, including its own Kurdish minority, for encouraging, deliberately or by neglect, the growth of Isil.
It also backfired on Monday when a Turkish Kurd who had joined Isil blew himself up at a youth centre in a Turkish town near the border, killing 32 people. The victims were youth activists intending to head to the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane nearby to help rebuild it after the Kurds’ successful defence of it against Isil attack.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu rounded on Isil yesterday and promised that action against the Islamist group “will not stop”. Meanwhile, Turkish police were rounding up what were described as “militants”, with 297 people arrrested across 13 provinces. Among them was a man described as Isil’s leading recruiter in Istanbul.
However, a large number were also leftist and Kurdish radicals, a sign that the government is still intent on preserving a balance between its fight against Isil and that against those it considers its real enemies – the PKK and the Assad regime.
A statement said raids were conducted “without distinction” against all terrorist groups.
“Turkey cannot stand by as Kurdish, Leftist and Islamic State militants target Turkey,” said Mr Davutoglu. “We will take necessary measures against whoever constitutes a threat to our border.”
The unrest threatens to open a new chapter in Turkey’s relations with its neighbours.
Some have accused its President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of acting like an Ottoman sultan with his thundering rhetoric about the Assad regime, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern flashpoints, and determination to back Syria’s non-Isil rebels.
The United States has still refused to get behind Mr Erdogan’s preferred option, of a no-fly and buffer zone in northern Syria against the Assad regime’s air force.
Instead, it announced plans for a high-level security barrier along its 600-mile border, to exercise greater control over who is going in and out.
In the months since the general election we have seen the Government signal both a commitment to fund the Armed Forces at 2 per cent of GDP, as required by Nato, and a determination to fight Isil in Syria as well as Iraq. Britain’s greater clarity of purpose and steelier resolve against one of the perils of our age are to be welcomed. But there is another country that has a far greater capacity than the UK to shape events in the Middle East – one that has, until now, stayed out of the spotlight.
Turkey straddles more than simply the continental divide between the West and Asia. A majority Sunni Muslim nation, it is also a Nato member and was once a trusted ally of Washington and London. Since the first poll triumph in 2002 of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party, however, ties with this crucial regional partner have become strained. Indeed, with the rise of Isil, Turkey has been accused of deliberately, if tacitly, helping the terrorists, by turning a blind eye to fighters crossing into Syria from Turkish territory, among other things.
Now Turkey has suddenly reversed its position, announcing that it will both take the fight to Isil itself, and allow allied air forces to operate from its bases. This is a move that has the potential significantly to realign the pieces on the Middle Eastern chess board. It is undoubtedly a blow to Isil, as proximity to their targets will give Western strike aircraft greater potency and liberty of action. Many of Isil’s supply lines should also be cut off. For this reason alone, Turkey’s change of heart should be celebrated.
Long-standing diplomatic pressure, combined with elections in June that brought the end of AKP single-party rule, can be partly credited. But perhaps the greatest incentive for Turkey to act came earlier this week, when a suicide bomber killed 32 people in the Turkish town of Suruc. From Ankara to Riyadh, there are many in the Islamic world who now consider Isil every bit as threatening as officials do in Western capitals. If anything, their concern is greater.
Certainly, by getting involved in northern Syria, Turkey has another agenda – ensuring that Kurds there cannot carve out a mini-state and so encourage the separatist dreams of Turkey’s own Kurdish population. But the very fact that there is once again a coincidence between Western and Turkish interests is a major advance – and one that could contribute to an Isil retreat.