Turkish military jets conducted aerial raids in Iraq’s Gara region, hitting two PKK terrorists’ targets, a statement by the Turkish General Staff said.
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The fatalities are the first of the Turkish operation inside Syria to be blamed on IS and Ankara s biggest single loss of life in the offensive to date.
Ankara now wants global support for an operation to take control of a rectangle of territory stretching into Syria, creating a buffer between two Kurdish-held cantons to the east and west and against ISIS to the south.
Washington says Turkish attacks on Kurdish-aligned militias damage a US -backed coalition that is fighting Islamic State.
The military also said the Free Syrian Army, a loose-knit rebel force backed by Turkey, had taken six more villages, also located in Islamic State-held areas.
Meanwhile, seven villages – Qarabah Mamal, Haydar Basha, Humayrah, Umm al-Tadaya, Al-Masannah, Quba al-Dam and Al-Mustafa al-Kabir – were captured by the Free Syrian Army from ISIL terrorist group on Monday.
Turkish television showed pictures of military helicopters flying across the border to take the wounded for treatment in Turkey.
Turkey has been alarmed by USA support for the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its YPG militia which Ankara sees as a “terrorist” group linked to its own Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which has been waging a bloody campaign against the Turkish state.
“Turkey has supported us in every way until now, and has now saved our homeland”, said Fatima Mahmud, a mother who was among the group, told the Turkish newspaper Milliyet.
Until now there had been few reports of clashes between Turkey or its allied fighters with IS.
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Washington and Ankara are ready to work together to push ISIS jihadists out of their self-declared Syrian capital of Raqqa, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday, revealing that his USA counterpart Barack Obama floated the idea during their recent meeting in China. But there had been indications of intense fighting with the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) militia. The Kurdish fighters are since supposed to have pulled back east of the Euphrates. The army sent 15 more tanks to the Islahiye district near the border, bringing the total number of tanks and armored vehicles in that area to 90, Dogan news agency reported. “According to Islamic State’s beliefs, they will face Armageddon here”.
