Pentagon: US launches 1st Syria airstrike from Turkey

Three people have been killed and seven wounded in clashes between Turkish security forces and suspected PKK militants in the Kurdish town of Silopi.

As mainstream media outlets blamed IS for the attacks, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) executed two Turkish police officers in their homes on July 22.

During the second military coup in Turkey in 1980, supporters and numerous cadres of the PKK were arrested.

ABC News reported Thursday that many U.S.-trained fighters are unaccounted for in northern Syria and some have even been found in neighboring Turkey.

“The PKK tried so hard to change its image, and it worked – the worldwide view changed”. “We told them that killing members of the Turkish security forces won’t solve the problem”. Washington had submitted a request to use the Incirlik base in the Adana province to strike Islamic State militants, but it has only been recently approved. But the shifting strategic alignments in the region, especially after the conflict in Syria acquired dimensions of full-blown civil war, meant that Turkey could go beyond older formulae and seek an accommodation of convenience with the Kurdish self-governing unit in Iraq.

Following a devastating Islamic Statelinked attack on a Turkish town near the Syrian border, the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has launched a campaign primarily targeting the Kurdish fighters who are the extremist group’s most effective opponents, essentially terminating the peace process with Turkey’s Kurds. The extensive raids waged by Turkish air force planes on positions belonging to the PKK gave an indication of Turkey’s zero-tolerance policy in dealing with the dual threat of terrorism emanating from IS and the PKK.

Erdogan repeatedly boasts of presiding over an economic miracle and is now proclaiming a target for Turkey to become one of the world’s top 10 economies by 2023, the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the modern state. It might also be least likely to abandon the anti-Islamic State coalition over Turkish actions because of its close economic ties to Ankara and ideological opposition to the PKK.

Turkey eventually allowed a handful of Iraqi Kurdish fighters to reinforce the stragglers in Kobani. There are 3,788 convicts and 783 prisoners from the PKK, whereas 195 convicts and 58 prisoners from the KCK. It is in alliance with both Kurds and Turkey against IS, while Turkey considers Kurdish forces as its main enemy.

To convince Washington to support the idea of the security zone, Ankara emphasized the fact that it has already accepted almost two million refugees and needs to protect its border from the attacks of militias operating in Syria.

Analysts say attacks like these are no help to the PKK public relations. But this diplomatic activity is inconsistent with the situation on the ground, where groups may be unwilling to fight for the objectives of their sponsors.

A United Nations report due in the coming weeks is expected to be critical of Turkey in its battle against jihadists, says political scientist Cengiz Aktar of Istanbul’s Suleyman Sah University.