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Turkey moves closer to intervention in Syria, Iraq Turkey, with Islamic State on its doorstep, is expected to authorize troops in Syria, Iraq
(about 5 hours later)
BAGHDAD—Turkey’s government edged closer Tuesday to direct intervention in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, bolstering security along its frontier with Syria and asking parliament to authorize a deployment of Turkish troops to the two war-ravaged countries. BAGHDAD— Turkey’s government edged closer Tuesday to direct intervention in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, bolstering security along its border with Syria and asking parliament to authorize sending troops to the two war-ravaged countries.
Turkey on Tuesday dispatched hundreds of soldiers and tanks to the Syrian border to contain potential violent spillover from an Islamic State siege on the Syrian border town of Kobane. Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters the proposal sent to parliament would include a wide range of options, including opening Turkish bases to foreign troops and deploying soldiers to establish safe zones for refugees inside Syria. The government wants the motion to be broad enough to avoid needing another parliamentary mandate for military action, he said.
Its cabinet also sent a motion to parliament that would potentially allow Turkish troops to enter Iraqi and Syrian territory to combat extremists. Parliament is scheduled to vote on the authorization in a closed session on Oct. 2. Proposed by Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, the motion is considered likely to pass. The motion is to be voted on Thursday and is considered likely to pass.
In a news briefing after the cabinet meeting, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said the proposal would include a wide range of options, including opening Turkish bases to foreign troops and deploying Turkish soldiers to establish safe zones for refugees inside Syria. The government wants the motion to be broad enough to avoid needing another parliamentary mandate for military action, he said. Turkey has resisted direct involvement in the international confrontation with the Islamic State. Allowing foreign forces to use its bases or airspace, and possibly to train U.S.-backed Syrian rebels in its territory, along with possible cross-border operations by its powerful and well-equipped military, would mark a significant change in the conflict.
Possible cross-border operations by Turkey’s powerful and well-equipped military would mark a significant change in the international confrontation with the Islamic State, a radical Islamist militant group also known as ISIS or ISIL. The Turkish action came as President Obama held a late-afternoon meeting with his National Security Council on his strategy to confront the Islamic State, which includes airstrikes in Syria and Iraq. The Pentagon said Tuesday that there have been more than 310 strikes by U.S. and coalition aircraft. Of those, more than 230 have been in Iraq, where British fighters on Tuesday conducted their first two strikes in support of Kurdish fighters in the northwest part of the country.
Turkey, a NATO member, has been accused of aiding Islamist militants by allowing them to traverse Turkish territory to fight in Syria. And Turkey has not yet joined a U.S.-led coalition conducting airstrikes against the group in Syria and Iraq. The remaining strikes have been in Syria, including several overnight Monday and Tuesday on Islamic State fighters besieging the border town of Kobane, which is defended by Kurdish forces from Syria and Turkey.
But if Turkey authorized foreign forces to use its bases or airspace — as the U.S.-led coalition has pressured the Turkish government to do — that would provide a convenient launchpad or transit corridor for strikes by the United States and its Arab allies. Amid calls for more assistance in the ongoing battle there, Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, cautioned against what he called a lack of “strategic patience.”
Recent U.S. airstrikes have sought to repel the Islamic State offensive against Kobane, which is defended by Syrian Kurdish forces and some Kurdish fighters from Turkey. “While we continue to hit them where they are, it doesn’t mean we can or even that we should hit them everywhere they are at every moment,” Kirby said in a news briefing in Washington. “We must choose. We must discriminate between targets that matter more to us in space and time . . . and those that run higher risks of collateral damage or civilian casualties.”
Kobane’s fall to the Islamic State would give the group control of a large stretch of the Turkish-Syrian border and possibly open new routes for supplies and recruits. The siege has caused more than 160,000 refugees to flee into Turkey in the past week, and shells from the fighting have also landed in Turkish territory. He said the strikes are clearly having an effect on Islamic State operations. The militants, he said, “have had to change their tactics and their communications and their command and control. Yes, they are blending in more. Yes, they are dispersing. And yes, they aren’t communicating quite as openly or as boldly as they once were. That’s a good thing, because if they aren’t operating as freely, then they aren’t as free to achieve their goals.”
U.S. warplanes hit an Islamic State position on the Turkish-Syrian border, according to a statement released Tuesday by the U.S. military’s Central Command. An additional 10 strikes were carried out in both Iraq and Syria on Monday and Tuesday, the statement said. “That doesn’t mean ISIL doesn’t still pose a threat,” Kirby said, using one of several acronyms for the Islamic State.
“Each time ISIS makes progress, the coalition strikes behind them,” said Ojlan Esso, a spokesman for the Kurdish fighting force in Kobane. “This happened in several villages.” Some supporters of the U.S.-backed Syrian rebel force, which is fighting the militants and the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, have charged that airstrikes there have caused civilian casualties — allegations the Pentagon has said it has not confirmed. Rebels have also accused the United States and its partners of aiding Assad by striking members of an extremist group, Jabhat al-Nusra, as well as the Islamic State.
Kurdish troops in Iraq, meanwhile, also launched an offensive to retake towns held by the Islamic State in the north, security officials said. The officials said thousands of Kurdish fighters, known as pesh merga, were participating in the battle, which is focused on the Iraqi border town of Rabea. In a comment likely to further anger the rebels, Kirby said both organizations “were born of al-Qaeda. . . . So in our minds, from a military perspective, they are very much one and the same.”
During the first night of air attacks in Syria last week, the United States also targeted the Khorasan group, a number of al-Qaeda operatives it said were embedded with Jabhat al-Nusra forces. While the rebel coalition rejects the Islamic State, it considers Jabhat al-Nusra a sometime ally.
Turkey has long favored establishment of safe, or buffer, zones along its border with Syria. The Obama administration has said that would require constant air protection that it was unwilling to provide as long as the principal enemy was the Syrian government and its potent air defense system.
The need for such overflights, and the risk to any protective aircraft, now seems to have greatly diminished. Syria has kept its air defense system in what U.S. officials have described as “passive” mode while the United States and Arab partners have pounded militant positions over the past week.
Turkey, a NATO member, has been accused of aiding the militants by allowing them to traverse Turkish territory to fight in Syria. But the border fighting — coupled with the rescue of dozens of Turkish diplomats and their families who were being held by the Islamic State — has shifted government opinion.
Kobane’s fall would give the Islamic State control of a large stretch of the Turkey-Syria border. The siege has prompted more than 160,000 refugees to flee into Turkey in the past week, and shells from the fighting have landed in Turkish territory.
Turkey on Tuesday dispatched hundreds of soldiers and tanks to the Syrian border to contain potential violent spillover from the Islamic State siege on Kobane.
In Iraq, meanwhile, Kurdish troops launched an offensive to retake towns held by the Islamic State in the north, security officials said. The officials said thousands of Kurdish fighters, known as pesh merga, were participating in the battle, which is focused on the Iraqi border town of Rabea.
In August, the Islamic State began a stunning campaign across northern Iraq from the city of Mosul, which it has controlled since June. Its fighters routed Kurdish forces from a number of areas, reaching within striking distance of the Kurdish regional capital, Irbil, before U.S. warplanes intervened to push the militants back.In August, the Islamic State began a stunning campaign across northern Iraq from the city of Mosul, which it has controlled since June. Its fighters routed Kurdish forces from a number of areas, reaching within striking distance of the Kurdish regional capital, Irbil, before U.S. warplanes intervened to push the militants back.
Since then, pesh merga fighters have held onto those gains, backed by the threat of U.S. airstrikes. But Rabea and other towns in the area west of Mosul have remained under Islamic State control since August. Since then, pesh merga fighters have held on to those gains, backed by the threat of U.S. airstrikes. But Rabea and other towns west of Mosul have remained under Islamic State control.
A Kurdish parliament member, Majid al-Sinjari, said Islamic State militants planted hundreds of improvised explosive devices that were slowing the offensive’s progress. He said the pesh merga has suffered casualties. A Kurdish parliament member, Majid al-Sinjari, said pesh merga forces hoped to advance on the jihadist-controlled town of Sinjar in the next two days. Sinjar was previously home to tens of thousands of Yazidis, an ethnic-religious minority that the Islamic State has deemed devil worshipers.
But he also said pesh merga forces hoped to advance on the jihadist-controlled town of Sinjar in the next two days. Sinjar was previously home to tens of thousands of Yazidis, an ethnic-religious minority that the Islamic State has deemed devil worshipers. DeYoung reported from Beirut. Mustafa Salim in Baghdad and Rebecca Collard and Suzan Haidamous in Beirut contributed to this report.
In August, the militants surrounded thousands of fleeing Yazidis who had taken shelter on nearby Mount Sinjar. The humanitarian crisis, in which Yazidis were dying of hunger and thirst, prompted the U.S. military to intervene.
Mahmoud Hajji, a security adviser to the Kurdish Interior Ministry, described Rabea and Sinjar as key logistics hubs for the Islamic State.
“We expect massive clashes [with the Islamic State] in Sinjar,” Hajji said.
In Baghdad, at least 25 people were killed Tuesday in car bomb and mortar attacks in two Shiite neighborhoods of the capital.
Collard reported from Beirut. Mustafa Salim in Baghdad and Suzan Haidamous in Beirut contributed to this report.