Turkey said on Monday the Syrian border region must be “completely cleansed” from the Islamic State (ISIS) group, after a weekend suicide bombing in Gaziantep blamed on the jehadists left at least 54 dead.
In a sign of a key battle to come, Syrian rebel fighters have amassed on the Turkish side of the border in preparation for an offensive on the town of Jarablus, ISIS’s last major transit point on the Syrian side of the border.
“Our border must be completely cleansed from Daesh,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in televised remarks, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.
“It is our most natural right to fight at home and abroad against such a terrorist organisation.”
A child suicide bomber, aged “between 12 and 14”, is suspected of having carried out the attack late Saturday in the southeastern city of Gaziantep near the Syrian border on the orders of the ISIS jehadis group, according to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Cavusoglu said Turkey has already taken an “active” role in the fight against ISIS, allowing coalition forces to use a key air base in the south of the country for strikes on extremist group.
Quoting security sources, some Turkish media reported earlier that the Gaziantep attack could have been retaliation by ISIS for an operation carried out by Ankara-backed Syrian rebels against the jihadists in Jarablus, northern Syria.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “hundreds of rebel fighters are inside Turkish territory, preparing to launch an offensive on Jarablus against ISIS”.