Turkish jets hit IS positions in Syria

The bombing followed a decision by Turkey this week to allow the U.S. military to use the Incirlik air base near the border with Syria to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State.

The Hurriyet daily said that the accord was finalised in telephone talks on Wednesday between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart Barack Obama. The air strikes come just a day after a Turkish soldier was killed and five other were wounded by Islamic State militants.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the Turkish warplanes were “100 percent” successful in their strikes inside Syria, noting, “The operation against IS (ISIL) reached its target and will not stop”.

Turkey’s government said in a statement it was determined to take on all “terrorist” groups “without distinction”.

Davutoglu said the air raid destroyed Islamic State targets threatening Turkey.

“Turkey will show the strongest reaction to the slightest movement that threatens it”, he said.

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.

Turkish warplanes on Friday struck three Islamic State targets inside Syria, the first offensive action against a terrorist organization that has taken control of much of the Syrian side of the 560-mile long Turkish-Syria border.

In the Turkish village of Beylerbeyi on the Syria border, near the scene of Thursday’s clashes between the military and IS militants, an AFP correspondent described the situation as peaceful.

Turkey has launched massive airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria.

Nearly simultaneous to the airstrikes, in a series of coordinated dawn raids in 13 provinces, Turkish authorities arrested 251 people suspected of involvement with IS or Kurdish militant groups, Agence France Presse reported.

The agency said 98 people were detained in Istanbul – 36 of them foreign nationals.

The move marks a significant increase in Turkey’s role in the fight against the militants, who have seized large areas of Syria and Iraq. The agency also said that a few 5,000 police officers joined the raids in 140 addresses in Istanbul.

The Turkish government, which has, until the beginning of this year, been accused of turning a blind eye by allowing IS fighters to cross its borders, was under huge global pressure to open the airbase.

In other attacks, seven police officers were injured after suspected PKK militants hurled a small bomb at a police station in Bismil town, near the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, the Dogan news agency reported Friday.

The raids came days after 32 young activists were killed in a suicide bombing on Monday that Ankara blamed on the Islamic State group.

War planes of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will not be able to enter the no-fly zone and will be targeted if they do so, it 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.