Ankara has frequently voiced concerns over Kurdish militant activity along the Turkish border and has been rigid in its stance of preventing any de facto Kurdish state from forming in northern Syria.
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Weaponry positions inside Turkey fired on Daesh as well as Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) militia targets in the towns of Jarablus and Manbij.
Both of those attacks were blamed on ISIS.
The military fired 40 shells at four Islamic State targets in Syria, NTV said.
This offensive coincides with a similar move by Syrian Kurdish militia, potentially putting them on a collision course in the fight for IS-held Jarablus. The “Islamic State” (IS, ISIL, ISIS or Daesh) is the most active terrorist group in Syria.
Abdulkadir Selvi, a well-connected columnist for the Hurriyet daily, said the Turkey-backed offensive “could begin at any moment”. The Ankara bombing was the deadliest of its kind in Turkey, killing more than 100 people.
Ankara has always called for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad as the key to ending the conflict, putting Turkey at odds with his main supporters Iran and Russian Federation. “It’s the cross-border settlement of scores by two actors fighting in Syria”. “They all died”, the groom, Nurettin Akdogan, said through tears.
But he also warned it was “unacceptable” for Kurds to seek to establish any kind of separate entity in northern Syria.
The attack comes with Turkey still shaken just a month after the government survived an attempted coup by rogue military officers, which Ankara blames on US -based Islamist preacher Fethullah Gulen.
On 29 June, 41 people were killed in a gun and bomb attack by Isis militants at Istanbul Ataturk Airport, while 37 victims died in a suicide auto bombing by Kurdish separatists in Ankara in March.
But Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Monday said it was too early to verify the organisation responsible or whether the attack was carried out by a child.
Reports said the previous assertions by the authorities had been based on eyewitness statements rather than concrete scientific evidence.
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Media said the majority of those dead were children or teenagers, with 29 of the 44 victims identified so far aged under 18. “I hope this will be the last one”.
