Agence France-Presse
Ankara, August 5: Turkey Wednesday announced that it was ready to begin a “comprehensive” fight against Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria alongside the United States, after months of staying on the sidelines of the US-led coalition. Ankara, long criticised for failing to stop the flow of jihadists to-and-fro across its border with Syria, has so far concentrated an almost two-week “anti-terror” campaign on the bombing of Kurdish militants. But Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu indicated that Turkey would be stepping up its campaign against IS jihadists after it gave permission for US forces to conduct armed missions from its Incirlik air base.
“As part of an agreement with the United States, we have technically made progress concerning the use of Incirlik base,” Cavusoglu was quoted as saying by the official Anatolia news agency after meeting US Secretary of State John Kerry in Malaysia. “The US planes have begun arriving and soon we will launch a comprehensive fight against Daesh all together,” he said, using a pejorative Arabic acronym for IS. Ankara is waging a two-pronged bombing campaign against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels as well as IS militants, following a wave of violence inside Turkey.
Meanwhile, two German-speaking jihadists claiming to belong to the Islamic State militant group threatened Germany with attacks in an execution video broadcast online Wednesday. The five-minute clip shows the men use assault rifles to kill two bound and kneeling male hostages in the Syrian ancient city of Palmyra, which IS fighters took in May.
