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ISIS Said to Attack Turkish Outpost Near Syrian Border Turkey to Allow Use of Key Air Base for U.S. Warplanes to Bomb ISIS
(about 2 hours later)
ISTANBUL — Turkey scrambled fighter jets to its border with Syria on Thursday after gunmen on the Syrian side opened fire on a Turkish outpost, killing one military officer and wounding five soldiers, a senior government official said. The official said the gunmen were Islamic State militants. AMMAN, Jordan — The United States and Turkey have reached an agreement in which manned and unmanned American warplanes will carry out airstrikes against the Islamic State from Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey, near the Syrian border, Obama administration officials said Thursday.
If the government is right, the shooting would be the first time the Islamic State and the Turkish military have engaged in a direct clash since the militant group gained large sections of territory along Turkey’s 500-mile border with Syria, where a civil war has been raging for more than four years. The agreement, described by one senior administration official as a “game changer,” came after months of negotiations that culminated on Wednesday with a phone call between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Obama, another administration official said.
“Turkey will take all measures to defend it from these attacks and defeat these terrorists,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak on national security matters. The development came as Turkish forces were reported to have engaged in the first direct combat with Islamic State forces on the Syrian side of the border.
The Turkish military also deployed tanks and its Fifth Armored Brigade to respond to the attack, resulting in the death of an Islamic State militant, Turkish news media reported. The developments vaulted Turkey squarely into the broader battle with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. It was a step the Turkish authorities had been reluctant to take until now in their effort to protect Turkey’s 500-mile border with Syria, where ISIS is firmly ensconced.
The Turkish officer was killed in the Turkish border region of Kilis after a pickup truck filled with what Turkish media said were Islamic State militants fired at the border outpost from Syria. Turkey had allowed unmanned strikes from Incirlik but had thus far balked at allowing manned airstrikes.
The clashs comes two days after a suicide bomber with suspected ties to the Islamic State struck a cultural center in the Turkish border town of Suruc, killing 32 people and wounding more than 100. Officials at both the State Department and the Pentagon said they were hesitant about talking about the pact until the Turkish government acknowledged the agreement publicly.
Two policemen were shot dead on Wednesday after Kurdish militants attacked them out of retaliation for the bombing, accusing the Turkish government of coordinating with the Islamic State in the attack. The United States and Turkey “have decided to further deepen our cooperation in the fight against ISIL,” the State Department’s spokesman, John Kirby, said in an emailed statement. He said that “due to operational security I don’t have further details to share at this time.”
It was not immediately clear whether the clashes at the border had stopped after the fighter jets were deployed to fly along the border. Mr. Kirby added that the United States would work with Turkey and other European partners to curb the flow of foreign fighters to Syria, recognizing that “the foreign fighter problem is not Turkey’s alone.”