Turkey–ISIL conflict

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Turkey–ISIL conflict
Part of the Spillover of the Syrian Civil War and Military intervention against ISIL
Rojava Kurdisch kontrollierte Gebiete.jpg
Territories controlled by the YPG, ISIL, the Syrian Army, Free Syrian Army, or contested in northern Syria, as of late June 2015, south of the border with Turkey.
Date 11 May 2013 – present
(2 years, 5 months, 1 week and 2 days)
Location Turkey, Syria and Iraq
Status
  • (Supposed) terrorist attacks by ISIL on Turkish soil or citizens in May 2013, March and June 2014, June and (2x) July 2015
  • Turkish attacks on ISIL in January 2014, and 23+24+25 July 2015
Belligerents

Turkey Turkey

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

Commanders and leaders
Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Turkey Ahmet Davutoğlu
Turkey Necdet Özel
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Abu Ala al-Afri
Abu Ali al-Anbari
Abu Suleiman al-Naser
Strength
423,299 military personnel
182,805 Gendarmes[2]
(2014 figures)
31,500[3]–100,000[4]
Casualties and losses
2 killed, 3 wounded[5][6][7][8] 5 killed
(between 35 to 100 killed in airstrikes)
4 suicide bombers[6][7][9][10][11]

Civilian Casualties:
189 civilians killed in a series of terrorist attacks connected to ISIL, with more than 300 wounded[12][13][14]

The Turkey–ISIL conflict is a series of attacks and clashes between Turkey and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, ISIS, Isis).

ISIL is suspected of involvement in or responsibility for the terrorist attacks on Turkish soil in May 2013 in Reyhanlı and March 2014 on Turkish police, the 5 June 2015 Diyarbakır rally bombing and most notably the 20 July 2015 Suruç bombing killing 32 young activists.
The Turkish government until July 2015 only attacked ISIL once militarily, in January 2014. In September 2014, Turkey joined a US-led coalition ‘to fight ISIL’.

On 23 July 2015, Turkey allowed the United States Air Force to use İncirlik and Diyarbakır air bases in southern Turkey for their airstrikes on ISIL. Also on 23 July, after an alleged ISIL attack on a Turkish border outpost in Kilis Province killing one Turkish soldier, the Turkish army with tanks shelled ISIL militants in Syria killing one militant and destroying several ISIL vehicles.

On 24 July 2015, an anonymous report appeared on a Turkish newspaper/website stating that the United States had agreed with Turkey on a ‘partial no-fly zone’ in northern Syria. While no official statement about the zone has been released, commentators still speculate about the real motives and objectives of Turkey and the US with the supposed ‘buffer zone’ or ‘ISIL-free zone’. On 24 and 25 July, Turkey carried out three waves of airstrikes on ISIL in Syria allegedly hitting a number of ISIL targets and killing 35 ISIL militants.

Background[edit]

Turkey (implicitly) supporting ISIL?[edit]

In June 2014, when ISIL had kidnapped 49 Turkish diplomats, Turkish opposition politicians accused the government of siding with militants such as ISIL, and a columnist said that Turkey now was “paying the price of its collaboration with terrorists”.[15]

Turkish opposition commentators and politicians in September 2014 again accused their government of implicitly supporting and funding ISIL, pointing to Turkey's decision to not allow the United States Air Force to use the highly strategic İncirlik Air Base for their military intervention against ISIL.[citation needed][16]

News websites late 2014 and early 2015 suggested also foreign criticism on Turkey’s “doing nothing” against ISIL, but gave no explicit example of such criticism.[17][18]

Turkey letting ISIL recruits through?[edit]

American website Al-Monitor stated in June 2014 that Turkey, during the Syrian Civil War, by "ignoring its own border security", had allowed its Syrian border to become a "jihadist highway" for ISIL to let thousands of international jihadists, and other supplies, reach Syria.[19][20] British newspaper The Guardian stated that Turkey late 2014 "for many months did little to stop foreign recruits crossing its border to Isis".[21]

A joint communiqué, issued 11 September 2014 by the United States and 10 Arab states, to stop the flow of volunteers to ISIL was not signed by Turkey present at the meeting. This not-signing may have been caused by the fact that ISIL then was holding 49 Turks hostage (see section June 2014: ISIL designated terrorists, then kidnap 49 Turks).[22]

ISIL attacking Kobanî from Turkish territory?[edit]

On 29 November 2014, reports emerged of ISIL fighters allegedly launching an assault on Kobanî from Turkish territory.[23] Kurdish sources in Kobane said that ISIL fighters attacked Kobane from Turkish territory, and that the assault began with a vehicle driven by a suicide bomber coming from Turkish territory. During the attack, a group of ISIL fighters were seen atop granary silos on the Turkish side of the border.[24][25] According to the German news outlet Der Spiegel, ISIL fighters also attacked YPG positions near the border gate from Turkish soil.[26] According to the SOHR, YPG fighters crossed the Turkish border and attacked ISIL positions on Turkish soil, before pulling back to Syria. Soon afterwards, the Turkish Army regained control of the border crossing and silos area.[27] The Turkish government rejected all those claims.

Chronology[edit]

May 2013 potential ISIL attack[edit]

On 11 May 2013, two car bombs exploded in the town of Reyhanlı, Hatay Province, Turkey, close to the busiest land border post (Bab al-Hawa Border Crossing) with Syria. 51 people were killed and 140 injured in the attack,[28] the deadliest single act of terrorism to occur on Turkish soil.[29][30]

The responsibility for the attack is as yet unclear: politicians, authorities, media, suspects have named at least six possibilities. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as late as September 2013, at the occasion of a threat to the Turkish government, suddenly claimed the 11 May 2013 attack.

In response to the attacks, the Turkish government sent air and ground forces to increase the already heavy military presence in the area.[31]

ISIL threatens Turkey (Sept. 2013)[edit]

Around 30 September 2013, according to English-language newspaper/website Today's Zaman, "a statement attributed to (…) ISIL" threatened Turkey with a series of suicide attacks in Istanbul and Ankara unless Turkey would reopen its Syrian border crossings at Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salameh before 7 October.[citation needed][clarification needed][32]

January 2014 Turkish attack on ISIL convoy[edit]

On 28 January 2014, the Turkish air force, according to few sources, performed an airstrike on Syrian territory hitting a pickup, a truck and a bus in an ISIL convoy.[33][34] Conflicting reports however said it was fire from Turkish tanks and artillery hitting the ISIL vehicles, after mortar shells had accidentally landed in Turkey.[35]

March 2014 attack[edit]

On 20 March, three foreigners emerging from a taxi opened fire with an AK-47 (some reports say Glock automatics) and lobbed a hand grenade, killing a soldier and a policeman who were conducting routine checks on the Ulukisla-Adana expressway. The attackers were wounded in return fire but got away. Two of the attackers were apprehended at Eminlik village, where villagers, thinking they were wounded Syrians, took them to the local medical clinic. Kosovan officials confirmed that the attackers were linked to al-Qaeda; some Turkish media preferred the scenario that they were from ISIL.[5]

June 2014: ISIL designated terrorists, kidnap 49 Turks[edit]

In June 2014, Turkey blacklisted ISIL and al-Nusra Front as terrorist organisations.[15]
Shortly after that, during the June 2014 takeover of Mosul (Iraq), ISIL captured the Turkish consulate and held its 49 people staff hostage.[36]

The hostages were freed in mid September 2014. It was later revealed that Turkish authorities had first paid an amount of money to ISIL officials and later swapped the hostages for 180 ISIL militants who had been apprehended or undergoing medical treatment in Turkey.[37] Turkey earlier had denied paying ransom.[38][39]

US-led coalition against ISIL (Sept. 2014)[edit]

On 5 September 2014, Turkey entered a US-led coalition of ten countries vowing to 'join forces to fight ISIL'.[40]

Training Kurdish Peshmerga (Nov. 2014)[edit]

Early November 2014, Turkish soldiers began training Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq, Turkey and Peshmerga confirmed, ‘as part of the struggle against ISIL’, a Turkish official said.[41]

Threatening the Suleyman Shah Tomb (2014–2015)[edit]

After Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in March 2014 had threatened to attack the Tomb of Suleyman Shah (the grandfather of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire; the tomb was located in northern Syria), and in early 2015 possibly was surrounding that tomb site, Turkey on 21 February 2015 decided to evacuate that tomb site, with a military convoy of hundred armored vehicles and 570 troops, and remove it, some 27 km northward, still in Syria but now 200 meters from the Turkish border.

June 2015 Diyarbakır attack[edit]

On 5 June 2015, just 48 hours before the June 2015 general election, two separate bombs exploded at an electoral rally in Diyarbakır held by the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). Four HDP supporters were killed and over 100 were injured. Suspicions as for the perpetrators lie on ISIL, on some ISIL-linked terrorist cell named the 'Dokumacılar' (Weavers), and on the PKK.

July 20: bomb attack Suruç[edit]

Main article: 2015 Suruç bombing

On 20 July 2015, the municipal cultural center in Suruç in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa was bombed. 32 people, mostly university-aged students planning to reconstruct the Syrian border town of Kobanî, were killed and 100 people were hospitalised. Turkey immediately blamed ISIL; the next day, ISIL claimed the attack.

23 July 2015[edit]

Turkish air bases for US to use[edit]

On 22 or 23 July, the U.S. reached an agreement with Turkey for American warplanes striking ISIL to use the Turkish air bases at İncirlik in Yüreğir, Adana Province and Diyarbakır in Diyarbakır Province, both in southern Turkey.[42] Turkey confirmed the deal on 24 July.[43] US Gen. Joseph L. Votel, head of the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command, on 24 July thanked Turkey for its permission to use the Turkish air bases: ”It provides additional flexibility and agility in addressing this enemy ISIL (…) It also means that Turkey has taken another step forward in being more committed to helping us.”[44]

Elbeyli incident[edit]

On 23 July 2015 at 13:30 local time, five gunmen identified by the Turkish military as ISIL fighters attacked a Turkish border outpost in the border town of Elbeyli, Kilis Province, killing one Turkish soldier (Yalçın Nane[45]) and wounding five.[42][46][47]

In reaction, Turkish forces pursued the militants into Syria,[citation needed][48] and Turkish tanks and artillery shelled ISIL militants in northern Syria, killing at least one militant and obliterating a number of ISIL vehicles.[42][47]

Turkish tanks also bombarded a small (abandoned[48]) Syrian village north of Azaz, Aleppo, in which the ISIL militants were thought to be taking refuge, and killed or wounded several of the ISIL militants who were trying to take cover there.[citation needed][48][47]

Around 7pm on 23 July, reports stated that 100 ISIL militants had been killed, but those reports were criticised by anti-government newspapers.[49][50][51] The Turkish Armed Forces later stated that all five ISIL militants who had attacked the Turkish army in Elbeyli had been killed.[52]

24–25 July[edit]

’Turkish–American zone in northern Syria’[edit]

On 24 July 2015, the Turkish, English-language newspaper/website Hürriyet Daily News, referring to unnamed "Turkish sources", reported that the deal, made public by the United States the previous day, in which Turkey gave permission to the US to use Turkish air bases for their air strikes on ISIL, was coupled to the consent the US gave to Turkey to set up a "partial no-fly zone" in Northern Syria of 90 km wide, between Syria’s Mare' and Jarabulus (Cerablus), 40 to 50 km deep.[53][54]

Neither Turkey nor the US has officially confirmed the deal on the Turkish buffer zone – a no-fly zone protected by Turkish and coalition forces – which would provide safe haven for refugees and deny crucial territory to the Syrian Kurds.[21] In the no-fly zone, Syrian regime jets will not be permitted, Hürriyet stated.[53][21]

Hürriyet Daily News suggested on 24 July that the no-fly zone was intended to “prevent radical groups such as ISIL or the (...) al-Nusra Front from gaining the mentioned land”.[53] While no official statement was released on the supposed deal on a 'no-fly zone', the British The Guardian speculated the deal to be part of Turkey's preoccupation with "thwarting Kurdish separatist ambitions in lawless parts of Iraq and Syria" and a prelude to the US turning a blind eye to possible future Turkish military action against the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in the area.[21]

Turkish website Hürriyet Daily News on 25 July, again referring to unspecified “sources”, changed their earlier narrative and vocabulary.[55] Their story now ran as that Turkey and the US had agreed on an “ISIL-free zone” in northern Syria, 98 kilometers long between Mare' and Jarabulus and 40 km deep, an area at that moment largely under ISIL control, from which the US and Turkey planned to totally eliminate all “jihadist terrorists” such as ISIL.[55] That goal would be pursued by air strikes mainly by the U.S., for which the US had been given permission (on 23 July) to use the Turkish air base İncirlik; Turkey would if necessary assist with long-range ground artillery.[55]
Mentioned unspecified ‘sources’ now reportedly had stressed that the zone should not be called a ‘security zone’ nor a ‘safe zone’ nor a ‘no-fly zone’ because such names might give the wrong impression to the Syrian government that the Turkish-American objective in this area was to fight the Syrian Assad-government.[55]
Mentioned unspecified ‘sources’ reportedly had further stated that Turkey and the US hoped that the zone, once cleared from ISIL presence, would be ruled by the Free Syrian Army, which would at the same time prevent the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) from expanding their influence in the region and create a safe zone for Syrian refugees.[55]

Airstrikes on ISIL[edit]

On 24 and 25 July, Turkey carried out three waves of airstrikes on ISIL targets in Syria. These attacks were motivated as an effort to pre-empt a planned attack on Turkey[44] and to be a “safeguard [for the Turkish] national security”. Considering its name ‘Martyr Yalçın’, it appears a revenge for an alleged ISIL attack the previous day killing a Turkish soldier named Yalçın Nane.
Two ISIL headquarters, an ISIL gathering point, and several more ISIL targets were struck, and reportedly 35 ISIL men killed; some Turkish F-16 jets thereby entered Syrian airspace.

Police raids in Turkey[edit]

On 24 and 25 July, Turkey engaged in police raids in 22 provinces in Turkey targeting suspected members of ISIL, the Kurdish Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Kurdish Revolutionary People's Liberation Party–Front (DHKP/C) and PKK’s youth organisation YGD/H.[56][57]

590 suspects from all of the groups targeted had been arrested by 25 July. The arrests included one ISIL member who had allegedly been planning a suicide bombing in Konya.[58][59][60]

August-October 2015[edit]

Further information: 2015 Ankara bombings and 2015 PKK rebellion

By conflating ISIL with the PKK,[61][62] the Turkish government was able to justify bombing runs on both Syria and Iraq, which had led to retaliation causing the deaths of hundreds if not thousands.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

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