ISLAMIC STATE

Turkish warplanes pounded Islamic State targets in Syria and police have detained hundreds of suspected militants across Turkey – a clear sign that Ankara may have shed its hesitancy in taking a front-line role against jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq.

Turkey has long been a reluctant partner in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, and has emphasised (more) the need to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey also insists that Syrian Kurdish forces pose a grave security threat.

The attacks on Islamic State targets inside Syria, however, and the early morning raids across 13 provinces at home are among its most robust and forceful operations yet. It is believed that Turkey has moved to a position of ‘active defence’ rather than its previous ‘passive strategy’.

Turkey acted within hours after Washington confirmed that Ankara had agreed to let U.S. fighter jets launch air strikes from a base near the Syrian border, dropping its earlier refusal to allow manned American bombing raids from there. A Turkish government official 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… But action won’t likely be taken unprompted.’

Turkey has faced increasing insecurity along its 900-km (560-mile) border with Syria. A cross-border firefight last week between the Turkish army and Islamic State, which has seized large areas of Syria and Iraq, left one militant and one soldier dead.

Three F-16 fighter jets then took off from a base in Diyarbakir, southeast Turkey, and hit two Islamic State bases and one ‘assembly point’ before returning to base.

A study of the terrain and region suggests that Turkish fighter jets may not have crossed the Syrian border during the operation.  Rather, air strikes may have happened from Turkish airspace near the Turkish town of Kilis.

The attacks are the first time that Turkey has bombed Islamic State in Syria. The aim of the strikes could also be to help rebels on the ground control areas near the border instead of Kurdish forces (who were also targeted).

Turkey has 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 last week.

Police rounded up more than 250 people in raids against suspected Islamic State and Kurdish militants in the raids which followed. The government in Turkey says it is determined to fight all ‘terrorist groups’ equally.

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.

It is understood that last week’s air strikes and action against terrorist groups were steps taken as preventative measures against a possible attack against Turkey from within or from outside. Turkey has repeatedly said it would take any ‘necessary measures’ to protect itself from attack by both Islamic State and Kurdish militants.

U.S. defence officials said that Turkey has agreed to allow manned U.S. planes to launch air strikes against Islamic State militants from an air base at Incirlik, close to the Syrian border. U.S. drones are already launched from the base. The U.S. and Turkey are working together to stem the flow of foreign fighters and secure Turkey’s border.

The ability to fly manned bombing raids out of Incirlik against targets in nearby Syria could be a big advantage. Such flights have had to fly mainly from the Gulf.

Turkey’s stance has frustrated some of its NATO allies, including the United States and Britain, 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.

• 27 July 2015

An extraordinary meeting of NATO is to be held in Brussels tomorrow, Tuesday 28 July, following Turkey’s request to discuss the escalating violence caused by the crisis in Syria. The meeting was invoked under Article 4 of the NATO treaty.

The treaty allows any one of the alliance’s 28 member states to request assistance when they consider ‘their territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened.’

A statement issued by Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO Secretary General, read: ‘Turkey requested the meeting in view of the seriousness of the situation after the heinous terrorist attacks in recent days, and also to inform Allies of the measures it is taking.

NATO Allies follow developments very closely and stand in solidarity with Turkey.’

The request comes as Turkey continued its airstrikes against Islamic State extremists in Syria and a widening of its anti-terror campaign to hit Kurdish militant targets inside Iraq. It is understood that Ankara is seeking the deployment of a surveillance aircraft because of the issues it is having along its border.

The basis for the request is that use of surveillance aircraft will help to create safe zones inside Syria with the Turkish border being policed by a military presence (presumably from NATO and members of the US-led coalition).

Article 4 has been invoked on numerous previous occasions. Turkey called meetings in 2003 and 2012, and was put into effect by Poland in 2014.

The escalation in military activity by Turkey comes after a spate of terrorist incidents, the most notable after a suspected IS suicide bomber killed 32 people, some of them Kurds, in the border town of Suruc. Trouble then flared in the mainly Kurdish southeast, with the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK killing two police officers, claiming it was retaliation for the suicide attack.

Washington has backed Turkey’s airstrikes against the PKK, saying: ‘It has a right to defend itself’.

The PKK has been fighting Turkey for autonomy since 1984, and has been classified as a terrorist organisation by Ankara.

• 28 July 2015

The setting up of ‘humanitarian safe zones’ across Turkey’s borders with Syria is something that has been discussed at length by Ankara and Washington, but prior to today’s NATO meeting in Brussels had not been finalised.

Although U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters control most of the 565-mile boundary between the two countries, Islamic State occupies a stretch which is some 60 miles long.

The creation of a buffer zone could open up a safe haven for thousands of Syrians who have been displaced by the crisis, but it would require air cover which would no doubt come from the US-led coalition.

Ground forces to hold and protect it would have to come from local contingents, or from a land deployment by members of the coalition – or Turkey itself.

The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD), urged the Turkish government to halt attacks against Kurdish fighters inside Syria, after shells injured several people including Kurdish villagers outside an Islamic State-held town. Turkey has denied making these attacks. Kurdish fighters claimed their positions had come under ‘heavy tank fire’.

More than 1,000 people have been detained in a crackdown on militants in Turkey – with Islamic State, the PKK and the leftist DHKP-C among the groups targeted.

• 29 July 2015

. Turkey has the second-largest army in the NATO alliance.

. At the NATO meeting in Brussels some European nations expressed concern that Mr Erdogan is using the opportunity to bomb Kurdish groups he brands a threat to the integrity of the Turkish state, but which enjoy some sympathy in the West.

. What has been called for is a ‘proportionate use of military force’. But how will that be defined?

. The Allies said that Turkey’s decision to hit the PKK camps in Iraq at the weekend was justified.

. Germany urged Turkey to respect the principle of proportionality.

. Stoltenberg defended NATO’s “limited role in the fight against Islamic State”.

. He argued that the alliance was already active in combating terrorism across the Mediterranean, in Afghanistan, in Jordan and Iraq.

. Turkey did not invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty.

. Mr Edogan said that Turkey is exercising its right to defend itself and will exercise this right until the end. He also said that there could be a duty for NATO, and asks that NATO to be prepared for this.

. The United States made some concessions and has pledged to work with Turkey to create a safe zone inside Syria for displaced persons.