Turkish fighter jets early Friday
bombed positions of Islamic State jihadists insideSyria for the first
time, in a dramatic escalation of fighting after the killing of a
Turkish soldier in cross-border clashes.
Three Turkish F-16s took off from the
southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir for an early morning bombing
raid against three IS targets, dropping four guided bombs, a statement
from the prime minister's office said.
The operation came after the first major
cross-border clashes between Turkey and IS jihadists on Thursday left
one Turkish soldier and one militant dead, thrusting Turkey into an open
conflict with the Islamists.
The bombing raid was the first by the
Turkish air force on IS since the Islamists began their advance across
Iraq and Syria in 2013, seizing control of swathes of territory right up
to the Turkish border.
It also came as Turkey, after months of
negotiations, finally gave the green light for the US to use a key air
base in its south for its air strikes against IS.
The decision to launch the Turkish air
force's operation was taken at a meeting of security officials in Ankara
late Thursday chaired by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
"In this context.... an operation was
carried out against targets belonging to Daesh inside the Syrian
border," the statement said, using an Arabic acronym for the group.
"Three of our F-16s hit... three targets
belonging to Daesh," it said, adding that "the government of the
Turkish Republic is determined to take the necessary measures to protect
national security".
The planes dropped their bombs just before 4:00 am local time (0100 GMT) and all returned safely to their base.
On Thursday, one Turkish soldier was
killed and two sergeants wounded in the Kilis region by fire from IS
militants on the Syrian side of the border. A jihadist was also reported
dead.
Turkish tanks then responded by opening fire on IS targets in Syria.
Militants raided in Istanbul
The fighting erupted after the killing
of 32 people in a suicide bombing Monday in a Turkish town on the Syrian
border that the government blamed on IS.
This sparked an upsurge in violence in
Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast, where many accuse the Turkish
authorities of collaborating with IS, accusations Ankara denies.
Turkish police on Friday launched raids
to arrest suspected members of the IS group and Kurdish militants, in an
apparent bid to stamp down on all sources of violence.
A total of 251 people were detained, the
prime minister's office said in a statement, adding that the raids took
place in 13 provinces across Turkey.
Police had raided addresses in several
Istanbul districts in search of members of IS, the Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK) and other militant groups.
The Dogan news agency said some 5,000 police were involved in the Istanbul operation.
As well as IS and the PKK, the operation
targeted suspected members of the PKK's youth wing the The Patriotic
Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) and the Marxist Revolutionary
People's Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C), Anatolia said.
A female member of the DHKP-C was killed in Istanbul in clashes with police during the raids, the agency said.
Two police had been shot dead in
southeast Turkey close to the Syrian border on Wednesday, in an attack
claimed by the PKK's military wing which said it wanted to avenge the
Suruc bombing.
On Thursday, another policeman was killed in the majority Kurdish city of Diyarbakir.
Meanwhile, the YDG-H claimed it had shot
dead an alleged former IS fighter in Istanbul late Tuesday and
threatened further assassinations.
'Deal on key air base'
Turkey has been accused of colluding
with IS extremists in the hope they might prove useful in its aim of
knocking out Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Ankara has always
vehemently denied the claims.
NATO member Turkey has also fallen far
short of playing a full role in the US-led coalition assisting Kurds
fighting IS militants, much to the chagrin of its Western allies.
However Ankara has finally given the
green light to US forces for use of its Incirlik base for air strikes
against IS in Syria and Iraq, American officials said Thursday
The Hurriyet daily said that the accord
was finalised in telephone talks Wednesday between President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart Barack Obama.
The New York Times said the agreement,
which would allow manned and unmanned US warplanes to use Incirlik for
raids against IS, was described by a senior administration official as a
"game changer".
Source: AFP