ANKARA, Turkey -- In a major tactical shift, Turkish warplanes struck Islamic State targets across the border in Syria on Friday, a day after Islamic State militants fired at a Turkish military outpost. A Syrian rights group said the airstrikes killed nine Islamic State fighters.
Turkey, which straddles Europe and Asia and borders the Middle East, had long been reluctant to join the U.S.-led coalition against the extremist group.
In addition, Turkish news reports said today that the fighter jets also hit camps of Kurdish militants in northern Iraq associated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which had pursued a violent campaign for autonomy in Turkey.
There was no immediate official confirmation of the airstrikes reported by the state-run TRT television and other media. If confirmed, it would be the first time Turkey has struck Kurds in northern Iraq since a peace deal was announced in 2013 between Ankara and the rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
Tensions have flared between Turkey and the Kurds in recent days after an Islamic State suicide bombing in the southeastern Turkish city of Suruc on Monday killed 32 people. Kurdish groups blame the Turkish government for not doing more to combat the Islamic State.
On Friday, Turkey said it had agreed to allow U.S.-led coalition forces to base manned and unmanned aircraft at its air bases for operations targeting the Islamic State. A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said Turkey's military would also take part in the operations.
The ministry would not provide details on the agreement, citing operational reasons, but said it expected Turkey's cooperation to "make a difference" to the campaign. The statement did not say which bases would be used, but Turkish media reports said they would include Incirlik, Diyarbakir and Batman, all in southern Turkey near the border with Syria.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed earlier that Turkey had agreed to let the U.S. use Incirlik air base for operations "within a certain framework." A U.S. official said the agreement was reached during a phone call this week with President Barack Obama.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the airstrikes Friday had "removed potential threats" to Turkey, hitting their targets with "100 percent accuracy." He did not rule out further airstrikes, saying Turkey was determined to stave off all terror threats.
"This was not a point operation, this is a process," Davutoglu said. "It is not limited to one day or to one region. ... The slightest movement threatening Turkey will be retaliated against in the strongest way possible."
A government official said three F-16 jets took off from Diyarbakir air base in southeast Turkey early Friday and used smart bombs to hit three Islamic State targets. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of government rules requiring authorization for comment.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the three Turkish airstrikes were all near the border, hitting north of the village of Hawar al-Nahr, east of the Rai area and west of the town of Jarablous.
He said the airstrikes killed nine extremist fighters, wounded 12 others and destroyed at least one Islamic State vehicle and a heavy machine gun.
Davutoglu said Turkish planes did not violate Syrian airspace Friday. He denied news reports claiming that Turkey had told the Syrian government about the airstrikes but said it had contacted NATO allies before the operation.
Turkey's moves came as the country finds itself drawn further into the conflict in neighboring Syria by a series of deadly attacks and signs of increased Islamic State activity inside Turkey itself.
A government statement said the airstrikes were approved Thursday after Islamic State militants fired from Syrian territory at the Turkish military outpost, killing one soldier.
Also Friday, Turkish police began a major operation Friday against extremist groups including the Islamic State, detaining more than 290 people in simultaneous raids in Istanbul and 12 provinces.
Anadolu said as many as 5,000 police officers were involved in Friday's sweep against suspected extremists, which also targeted rebel group the Kurdistan Workers' Party and the outlawed far-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front. Davutoglu said those detained included 37 foreign nationals but did not name their home countries.
One Party-Front suspect, a woman, was killed in a gunfight with police in Istanbul, Anadolu reported.
The agency said those detained in Istanbul included Halis Bayuncuk, an alleged Islamic State cell leader in the city who is suspected of having helped recruit supporters.
Meanwhile in Iraq, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter held talks Friday with Kurdish leaders in their regional capital of Irbil, Iraq, seeking insights to their military successes against the Islamic State.
Afterward, he told U.S. and coalition troops that the Kurdish armed forces, known as the peshmerga, are "the model of what we are trying to achieve" with a strategy of enabling capable and motivated local forces in northern and western Iraq to take the ground combat lead.
He said U.S. ground and air forces could defeat the extremist group on their own, but the success would not last.
"We're trying to get a defeat that sticks," he told a group of several dozen troops. "And that can be delivered only by the people that live here," adding, "that's the secret sauce."
Carter was to meet with Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish regional government, and other Kurdish government and military officials. The U.S. is helping train and equip Kurdish armed forces in battles against Islamic State fighters.
The Kurdish forces, generally more experienced and more effective on the battlefield than their counterparts in the Iraqi army, have played a vital role in containing the Islamic State in northeastern Iraq.
They hold mostly defensive positions across large parts of northern Iraq and would be likely to play a key role in an eventual Iraq campaign to retake Mosul, which fell to the Islamic State in June 2014.
The U.S. military works closely with the Kurds, providing arms, training and advice.
In related news, Iraq's top Shiite cleric Friday called on the Iraqi government to do more to protect the families of Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State, saying they are an "easy prey" for extremists bent on revenge attacks.
In his weekly sermon, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani also said authorities should implement tough policies to catch and punish those who attack innocent civilians.
"It is not logical or acceptable that the fighters, soldiers or volunteers who are sacrificing themselves for the sake of Iraq leave their loved ones and families under the protection of the security forces, and then those people become easy prey for Daesh," said al-Sistani's spokesman Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalaie, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
Information for this article was contributed by Bassem Mroue, Josh Lederman, Robert Burns and Vivian Salama of The Associated Press.
A Section on 07/25/2015