Turkey Gives US Permission to Use Airbase to Attack ISIS
The government of Turkey has granted permission to the United States to launch manned airstrikes from bases in the southern portion of the country after a suicide bombing and attacks on Turkish troops on the Syrian border.
The New York Times reports that the strikes will be launched from airbases at Incirlik and Diyarbakir. The United States has longed press Turkey for access to the base at Incirlik to launch manned flights and bombing raids on Syrian and Iraqi territory held by the Islamic State, but the Turkish government has previously only given permission for unmanned attacks, and even that took months of convincing.
This coupled with the fact that the government is prosecuting police officers and legal officials who stopped weapons shipments for Syria from within Turkey conducted by members of the Turkish intelligence agency MiT has led many to claim that the Turkish government has been tacitly supporting ISIS and other radical Islamist groups.
The deal granting access U.S. forces use of Incirlik for manned air attacks on ISIS was said to have been sealed with a high level phone call between President Barack Obama and his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The immediate impetus was a suicide bombing at a Kurdish political rally by an ISIS sympathizer in the town of Suruc.
It appears as the deal was in the works and being finalized, ISIS attacked a Turkish military post in the border region of Kilis. One Turkish soldier was killed in the firefight while another five were injured.
The Turkish government responded by mobilizing tanks, artillery, and fighter jets that targeted and opened fire upon a number of ISIS targets in Syria, killing at least one ISIS fighter and immobilizing or destroying a number of the group's vehicles.
