ISTANBUL : Turkey on Tuesday pounded Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria with new artillery strikes as expectations grew of a major Ankara-backed offensive against the militants after a deadly suicide bombing on its soil.
\nWith tensions flaring on the Turkey-Syria border following the bombing in the nearby city of Gaziantep that left 54 people dead, Turkish howitzers on Tuesday hit militant and Kurdish rebel targets across the frontier.
\nTurkey has been shaken by one of the bloodiest years in its modern history, with a string of attacks by IS militants and Kurdish militants and the botched July 15 coup.
\nIn new fighting on Tuesday, two mortar rounds fired from an IS-controlled area in Syria hit the southeastern Turkish town of Karkamis, Turkish television reported.
\nTurkish artillery responded by hitting four IS positions around the militant-controlled Syrian town of Jarablus with around 60 shells, it said.
\nThe shelling came after as activists said hundreds of Ankara-backed rebels were preparing an offensive against the IS group to seize control of Jarablus.
\nBut this could potentially put them on a collision course with the militia of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) which Ankara vehemently opposes and also has its eyes on Jarablus after seizing the strategic Manbij area in northern Syria from IS.
\nRami Abdul Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the “Turkish shelling in Syria aimed to prevent the advance of troops backed by Kurds from Manbij towards Jarablus”.
\nAbdulkadir Selvi, a well-connected columnist for the Hurriyet daily, said the Turkey-backed offensive “could begin at any moment”.
\nThe plan has not been confirmed by the Turkish authorities but Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday that the border area had to be “totally cleansed” of militants.
\nThe movements have come at a critical juncture for Turkey in Syria\u2019s five-and-a-half-year war, with signs growing it is on the verge of a landmark policy shift.
\nAnkara 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 Russia.
\nHowever Prime Minister Binali Yildirim at the weekend for the first time acknowledged that Assad was one of the “actors” in Syria and may need to stay on as part of a transition.
\nOn Tuesday, he urged world powers including Iran, Russia and the United States to join together to rapidly open a “new page” in the Syria crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISTANBUL : Turkey on Tuesday pounded Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria with new artillery strikes as expectations grew of a major Ankara-backed offensive against the militants after a deadly suicide bombing on its soil. With tensions flaring on the Turkey-Syria border following the bombing in the nearby city of Gaziantep that left 54 people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n