Until recently, only reconnaissance drones took off escapades from Incirlik.
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Turkey’s foreign minister says U.S. drones and aircraft have begun arriving at a Turkish air base close to the border with Syria, and an “effective” fight against Islamic State militants will soon begin.
Kerry “welcomed Turkey’s recent decision to open its bases to US participation in air operations against (the militants) and its support for Syrian refugees”, a senior State Department official told reporters after the meeting.
The USA launched its first airstrike into Syria from Turkey, the Pentagon confirmed on Wednesday.
The YPG, which ousted IS from the mainly Kurdish town of Kobane in January, has emerged as the most capable anti-IS force in Syria and a key ally of the US-led air campaign.
Some moderate commanders on the ground said it could be a good sign that the U.S.is now bringing in airstrikes to support Syrian rebels on the ground.
“We are training and equipping the moderate [Syrian] opposition together with the United States, and we will also start our fight against Daesh very effectively soon”, he said.
Analyst Charles Lister follows Syria closely and says the episode “is not a particularly good indicator in terms of these forces’ capabilities, in terms of protecting themselves against potential adversaries”.
Cavusoglu said his nation would be stepping up its airstrikes against IS fighters.
This stealth was castigated by Council of Foreign Relations analyst Micah Zenko, in an August 3 blog posting shortly after the news first broke that Obama had decided to authorize air strikes to defend the U.S.-trained rebels from any and all attackers including, should that situation arise, Assad’s forces.
But major challenges remain.
Still, the Obama administration appeared on Monday to play down the chances that Assad’s forces would target the U.S.-backed rebels and noted that his military had not fired on U.S.-led coalition aircraft bombing Islamic State targets in Syria. Ankara wants the Kurdish fighters to advance no farther than the Euphrates River, on the eastern fringe of the planned safe zone.
The Pentagon is struggling to meet those goals, however, since it is looking for recruits who have no ties to radical Islamic groups and are willing to pledge to fight the Islamic State and not the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is struggling to win a four-year-long civil war.
The Pentagon on Tuesday also offered additional details on Friday’s attack, saying it believed “several members” of the U.S.-trained force were attacked by about 50 fighters believed to be from Nusra Front.
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“Ankara has to find a formula for this problem with Washington because if it doesn’t, it stands to lose more than the US, especially with regard to its operations against the PKK in northern Iraq“, Kuloglu said, arguing that Iraq is effectively under US control, giving Turkey a free hand to carry on with its strikes against the PKK there.
