Turkey sends more tanks into Syria to fight IS

Turkey, a member of the US-led coalition against Islamic State, has opened up a new line of attack in northern Syria.

On Saturday, Turkish tanks crossed the frontier from Kilis province and entered the Syrian town of al-Rai , starting a western leg in an operation to sweep militants from its border.

"They [the tanks] entered the attack now," said Mohamed Rasheed of the Jaish al-Nasr rebel group, which operates under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The wider offensive against Islamic State along the Syria-Turkey border is being waged by Turkish-backed FSA factions and has been supported by Turkish tanks and warplanes.

Meanwhile, US forces hit Islamic State targets overnight near Turkey’s border with Syria using a newly deployed mobile rocket system, a senior diplomat said on Saturday.

“US forces struck ISIL targets near Turkey’s border in Syria last night via newly deployed HIMARS system,” Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the coalition to counter Islamic State, said on Twitter.

HIMARS refers to a “High Mobility Artillery Rocket System”.

It was not immediately clear when the system was deployed at Turkey’s border.

Clashes

More than 100 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants were either killed or wounded in clashes with Turkish security forces on Saturday, the military said.

It was one of the highest casualty tolls in a single day of the conflict in recent years.

Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast has been rocked by waves of violence following the collapse of a 2-and-a-half-year ceasefire between the state and the PKK last year.

The military said in a statement that more than 100 PKK militants had been “neutralised” in clashes, without specifying how many were killed and how many wounded.

It said most had been taken back to northern Iraq, where the PKK has mountain camps.

Turkey’s southeast has seen heavy fighting in recent days in Hakkari province, near the border with Iraq, and in Van province, near the border with Iran.

Five Turkish security force members were killed and six more were wounded in clashes in Hakkari, security sources told Reuters.

Eight more security force members were killed overnight in Van, the sources said.

More than 40,000 people, most of them Kurds, have died since autonomy-seeking PKK launched its insurgency against the Turkish state more than 30 years ago.

The PKK is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the EU.

Reuters