Turkey strikes PKK in Iraq and ISIS in Syria By AFP, Reuters/Saturday, 25 July 2015
Turkish forces on Saturday unleashed a third wave of airstrikes and ground attacks on targets of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group in Syria and Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said. “We have given instructions for a third series of strikes in Syria and Iraq. Air and ground operations are under way,” Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara. “No one should doubt out determination,” he added. “We will not allow Turkey to be turned into a lawless country.”Turkey had early Saturday carried out a second wave of the air strikes it says are aimed at extinguishing terror threats, this time hitting not just ISIS targets in Syria but also Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq. The strikes against PKK targets are likely to be a major blow to the stalled Kurdish peace process.In a statement posted on the PKK website on Saturday, the group said truce with turkey has “no meaning anymore” after last night’s military attacks. Fighter jets hit PKK targets in several locations in northern Iraq, including warehouses, “logistic points,” living quarters and storage buildings, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s office said. The outlawed PKK, deemed a terrorist organization by Ankara and Washington, has waged a three-decade insurgency against Turkey for greater Kurdish autonomy.
First airstrikes in Syria
Along with the strikes in Iraq, Turkey launched its first-ever air attack against ISIS targets in Syria early on Friday, promising more decisive action against both the militant and Kurdish militants. Turkey stepped up its role in the U.S.-led coalition against the militant group ISIS on Friday. As well as launching its first air strikes against the hardliners in Syria, it promised to open up its air bases to the United States. In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. Security Council, Turkey justified its decision to conduct air strikes in Syria against ISIS militants claiming the Syrian government was neither capable nor willing to tackle the radical Islamist group. Turkey’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Levent Eler cited Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which covers an individual or collective right to self-defense against armed attack, as justification for its action. “It is apparent that the regime in Syria is neither capable of nor willing to prevent these threats emanating from its territory which clearly imperil the security of Turkey and safety of its nationals,” he wrote in the letter, seen by Reuters. “Syria has become a safe haven for (ISIS). This area is used by (ISIS) for training, planning, financing and carrying out attacks across borders,” he added.
Raids on ISIS, PKK affiliates
Police also detained 590 suspected ISIS and PKK members in a crack down on Friday, Davutoglu said after vowing to fight all “terrorist groups” equally. Turkey’s more active role comes after a suspected ISIS suicide bomber killed 32 people, some of them Kurds, this week in the border town of Suruc. That touched off a wave of violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast, with the PKK killing at least two police officers, calling it retaliation for the suicide bombing. Many Kurds and opposition supporters have suspected Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling AK Party of covertly backing ISIS against Kurdish fighters in Syria, something the government has repeatedly denied. Separately, the Istanbul authorities on Saturday banned a planned anti-militant “peace march” scheduled to take place in the Turkish metropolis this weekend, citing security and traffic congestion. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has hoped to rally thousands on Sunday for the protest to condemn violence by ISIS militants following a suicide bombing on Monday that killed 32. But the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement that the rally had been banned due to “intense traffic” expected in the city and also “provocations” endangering security. The HDP confirmed in a statement that it had been forced to cancel the rally but vowed that “our struggle for peace and democracy will continue.” Erdogan took a big political risk in starting peace talks in 2012 with the Kurds, who represent nearly 20 percent of Turkey’s population, but they now blame him for backtracking on promises. On Friday, Erdogan said he had told U.S. President Barack Obama that the PKK, which he calls a separatist organization, would be a focus for attacks.
Turkey attacks ISIS in Syria, Kurds in Iraq Reuters/Ynetnews/Published: 07.25.15/Israel News
In policy turn-about, Erdogan allows coalition aircraft to use Turkish bases for attacks against ISIS while Turkish jets infiltrate Syria, Iraq.Turkish fighter jets entered Syrian airspace to launch a fresh attack on Islamic State targets late on Friday, local broadcaster NTV reported. A Turkish official could not confirm the report, although another broadcaster, CNN Turk, also reported that jets had entered Syrian airspace. A first attack on Islamic State targets on Friday morning was mounted by Turkish jets from a location inside Turkey, but close to the border. An additional Turkish air strike took aim at Kurdish PKK militants in northern Iraq Friday night. Ankara also said it had approved the use of its air bases by US and coalition aircraft to mount strikes against Islamic State, marking a major change in policy that has long been a sore point for Washington. Turkey has long been a reluctant partner in the US-led coalition against Islamic State, emphasizing 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 air space, signaled 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 organization – at home. “In our phone call with Obama, we reiterated our determination in the struggle against the separatist organization and the Islamic State,” Erdogan told reporters. “We took the first step last night.” Turkey has faced increasing insecurity along its 900-km (560-mile) 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 five militants and one soldier dead.
Turkey has also suffered a wave of violence in its largely Kurdish southeast 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 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.” Opposition lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party said Erdogan is intent on “obstructing” the advances made by the Syrian Kurds against Islamic State. “The real aim of today’s operations is not the Islamic State, but the democratic opposition,” they said in an e-mailed statement.News of the military operations further unnerved jittery investors, helping send the lira down nearly 4 percent on the week.
“Without distinction”
Three F-16 fighter jets took off from a base in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, early on Friday and hit two Islamic State bases and one “assembly point” before returning, the prime minister’s office said. “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 told Reuters. “But action won’t likely be taken unprompted.” Police also rounded up nearly 300 people in Friday’s raids against suspected Islamic State and Kurdish militants, Prime Minister Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said after vowing to fight all “terrorist groups” equally. Local media reported that helicopters 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. One senior official told Reuters: “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 defense from passive defense.”Turkey has repeatedly said it will take any “necessary measures” to protect itself from attack by both Islamic State and Kurdish militants. Obama and Erdogan agreed in their call on Wednesday to work together to stem the flow of foreign fighters and secure Turkey’s border.
US defense officials said on Thursday that Turkey had 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. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry went further on Friday, saying it had approved coalition strikes to be launched from its air bases. That would include air fields such as the one in Diyarbakir, southeast Turkey, from where it dispatched the F-16 fighters for the attack in Syria. The ability to fly manned bombing raids out of Incirlik against targets in nearby Syria could be a big advantage. Such flights have so far had to fly mainly from the Gulf. Turkey’s stance had frustrated some of its NATO allies, including the United States, whose priority is fighting Islamic State rather than Assad. The allies have urged Turkey to do more to prevent its border being used as a conduit to Syria by foreign jihadists.
Kurds ‘Gain Ground in Syria’s Hasakeh’ in IS Fightback
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/25 July/15/Kurdish militia have expanded their control over portions of a major Syrian city in their fightback against the Islamic State group, to the detriment of government forces there, a monitor said Saturday. “The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) are advancing in Hasakeh city against IS and at the expense of the regime,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The YPG and government forces have both been defending the city from an IS assault, which began last month. The Britain-based Observatory said the YPG now controls a majority of the metropolis, despite Kurds making up just under a third of its population. “The YPG control 70 percent of Hasakeh city, IS controls 10 percent and the regime controls 20 percent,” Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse. Before the IS began its offensive by seizing territory in southern neighborhoods from regime forces, the Kurdish militia controlled less than half of Hasakeh. When the YPG pushed the jihadists out of some of these areas, they maintained control of them. The YPG also directly expanded into areas held by loyalists in the city center, although it did not engage in clashes with them. The militia now hold territory in Hasakeh north, west, center and south, said Abdel Rahman, with IS left “surrounded” in four small neighborhoods in the south. More than 230,000 people have been killed in Syria since anti-government protests erupted in March 2011 before degenerating into civil war.
