ISIS Allowed to Move Weapons Across Turkish Territory

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USA Today

Turkish fighter jets on Thursday pounded Syrian Kurdish rebel positions across the border in northern Iraq in retaliation for an attack in Ankara on Wednesday that killed at least 28 people.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu both blamed Syrian Kurdish militias for a car bomb that targeted a convoy of Turkish military vehicles in the nation's capital. At least 61 people were wounded in the incident.

Salih Muslim, a Syrian Kurdish leader, nevertheless rejected Turkey's allegation, saying his group had "no link to these bombings." There were no other claims of responsibility including from the Islamic State that has bombed the city in the past.

Davutoglu said 12 people were detained in connection with the attack. He also confirmed the man who denoted the bomb was a Syrian national. Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak previously identified the bomber as Salih Necar, a registered Syrian refugee in Turkey. About 2 million Syrian refugees are in Turkey.

Davutoglu said the attack was the result of a collaboration between "the PKK together with a person (Necar) who sneaked into Turkey from Syria."

The PKK is the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a banned militant organization in Turkey that is battling Ankara for more political rights. The PKK has sought autonomy from Turkey for decades but it stepped up a bombing campaign in July after peace talks with the Turkish government broke down.

The situation is complicated by Syrian Kurdish militia groups in Iraq and Syria who have been fighting Islamic State, or ISIL, militants alongside the United States and its allies. ISIL has also recently carried out bombing attacks in Turkey including an attack in Ankara in October that killed 102 people.

The U.S. has designated the PKK a terrorist group but has not done the same for the Syrian Kurdish militias. They have proved resilient in the face of ISIL.

Erdogan, Turkey's president, said Wednesday's attack demonstrated that there are strong links between the PKK and Syrian Kurd fighters.

Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency said there were casualties as a result of its bombing of rebel positions in Iraq but it did not provide specifics. Turkey said a separate attack by PKK militants in the country's southeast killed six soldiers.

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Hundreds of Islamist fighters enter Azaz through Turkish territory

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that 500 Islamist fighters on Wednesday crossed the Turkish border and headed for the Syrian town of Azaz in northern Aleppo province. Trusted sources confirmed to the observatory that the fighters’ moving was under the supervision of the Turkish authorities.

The Syrian Observatory published also on the 15th of February that about 350 fighters of a rebel faction armed with light and heavy weapons, entered through Atamah military border crossing in the northern countryside of Aleppo. Accordingly, some of them reached the town of Tall Rifat accompanied by modern weapon, and Turkish authorities allowed them to pass and oversaw their transition process from the countryside of Idlib to the northern countryside of Aleppo through its territory.

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel, told Agence France-Presse that; “At least 500 rebels have crossed the Bab al-Salam border crossing on their way to the town of Azaz, from which they want to help the insurgents in the face of gains made by Kurdish forces in the north of the province.”

On the other hand, another report by Reuters stated that Syrian rebels have brought at least 2,000 reinforcements through Turkey in the past week to bolster the fight against Kurdish-led militias north of Aleppo, rebel sources said on Thursday.

Turkish forces facilitated the transfer from one front to another over several nights, covertly escorting rebels as they exited Syria's Idlib governorate, traveled four hours across Turkey, and re-entered Syria to support the embattled rebel stronghold of Azaz, the sources said.

"We have been allowed to move everything from light weapons to heavy equipment, mortars and missiles and our tanks," Abu Issa, a commander in the Levant Front, the rebel group that runs the border crossing of Bab al-Salama, told Reuters, giving his alias and talking on condition of anonymity.