Initial onslaughts were followed up by Turkish warplanes bombing ISIS targets in the town.
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A force of 1500 Turkish-backed Syrian rebels is said to be waiting in the city to take part in the Jarablus operation.
“It is Turkey’s legal right, it is within its authority” to take action, the minister said, adding that Wednesday’s operation aimed to support the moderate Syrian opposition and was being carried out in coordination with the USA -led coalition forces.
US-backed Kurdish forces have been eager to drive ISIS out and to remove the group’s access to resupply of materiel and fighters from Turkey.
Turkey had vowed on Monday to “completely cleanse” IS militants from its border region after a suicide bomber suspected of links to the group killed 54 people at a Kurdish wedding in southeastern city of Gaziantep.
Turkey is concerned about the growing clout of the group, which it says is linked to Kurdish groups waging an insurgency in southeastern Turkey.
He also added: “You will not silence our calls to prayer, you will not make this country kneel, you will not chain this people”.
A Syrian activist group monitoring the civil war says Syrian rebels who were amassed at the Turkish border have crossed into Syria as part of a Turkey-backed operation to liberate an Islamic State-controlled border town.
The Britain-based monitoring group didn’t say how many fighters were involved.
Syria has been suffering from an armed conflict since March 2011, which, according to the United Nations, has so far claimed over 500,000 lives.
Turkey’s military launched an operation before dawn Wednesday to clear a Syrian border town from Islamic State militants, and the country’s state-run news agency said Turkish tanks had crossed into Syria as part of the offensive.
Private NTV television said as many as 20 tanks had crossed into Syria.
The concern in Ankara is that the Kurds could create an autonomous area close to the border which might foster Kurdish separatism within Turkey itself, the correspondent says.
Just a few hours after the operation started, Vice President Joe Biden landed in Ankara for talks that include developments in Syria.
The visit comes at a hard time for ties between the two North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies.
A senior US official aboard Biden’s plane told reporters that Washington was “in synch” with Turkey on the operation. Turkey will not allow terrorist organizations next to us to threaten Turkey.
Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Turkish-Kurdish rebel group fighting for autonomy since the 1980s.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed the operation was to target Islamic State and the Kurdish PYD in Syria, adding that Turkey wanted to put an end to “frequent attacks”.
Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala said that Wednesday’s operation was being carried out in coordination with the US-led coalition forces.
The minister added that Wednesday’s operation aimed to support the moderate Syrian opposition and is being carried out in coordination with the USA -led coalition forces.
NTV described it as an “intruder mission” meant to carry out “pinpoint operations” against the Islamic State to clear Jarablus of the extremists.
About the operation’s duration, he says: “Until when?”
The military operation is focusing on the IS-held Syrian border town of Jarablus and the surrounding area.
According to Sputnik News Turkish F-16 jets struck 11 terrorist targets that had been identified by a group of special task force operatives who had entered Syrian territory earlier.
After reports that Turkey also was firing artillery at Syrian Kurdish fighters from the Democratic Union Party (PYD), PYD leader Salih Muslim said Turkey had entered “the Syrian quagmire” and would be defeated along with IS militants.
Turkish government officials could not immediately confirm the report.
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Tanks could later be seen moving up to the border and opening fire.
