Officials believe this will cut off supplies for the Islamic State’s “capital” of Raqqa, while U.S. and Turkish warplanes pound the group’s fighters from air bases in Turkey.
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“We’re seeing that manned and unmanned American planes are arriving and soon we will launch a comprehensive battle against ISIS altogether”, he said during a trip to Malaysia.
The United States has conducted its first drone strike into northern Syria from a base in Turkey, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, ahead of what Ankara said would soon be a “comprehensive battle” against Islamic State militants there.
In an interview with the BBC, Captain Ammar al-Wawi criticized the U.S. for failing to protect its 54 fighters when they came under attack from the Nusra Front.
As a member of the global coalition led by its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally Washington, Turkey had so far declined to take robust action against jihadists, but after a deadly bombing in July in a border town blamed on suspected IS jihadists it launched limited strikes against the group in Syria.
The U.S. and its allies, after several years of missteps, finally seem to be framing a strategy for combating the Islamic State militarily in Syria, even as they continue to pursue a political settlement with Damascus.
Urfa, Turkey – Turkish Foreign Ministry revealed on Wednesday that Turkish fighter jets are prepared to join a U.S.-led “intensive military campaign” against Islamic State group (IS/ISIS) in the coming days.
Nusra’s campaign against the US-backed rebel unit continued this week, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring network with wide contacts inside Syria, saying Nusra kidnapped five more members of Division 30.
Turkey shares an 800-kilometer (500-mile) border with Syria, and a section of its southern frontier abuts directly with territory controlled by the Islamic State group.
Cavusoglu said at the start of a meeting with Kerry that the anti-IS operation would be helped by moderate Syrian rebels.
But the Pentagon has not said what it would do if the U.S.-trained forces clash with troops from the Syrian government, which the U.S. does not want to confront militarily.
The Turkish minister also told reporters that once the “effective” fight has begun, the ground would become safer for moderate opposition forces fighting ISIL.
The two envoys met at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur on the sidelines of a regional security gathering hosted by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. “Turkey has largely achieved its first goal in the struggle against ISIS, which was to push the ISIS elements away from the Turkish border”.
More than a dozen other rebels with the group Division 30, which was vetted but not trained or equipped by the United States, have also been wounded and captured.
Cavusoglu said that Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif will arrive in Ankara next week for talks on the conflict.
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Washington said Tuesday it had indications some of the rebels trained by its military were captured by fighters from al-Qaida’s Syria wing, Nusra Front.
