Istanbul – Turkey has ramped up its efforts against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) after the group attacked the tourist district in Istanbul’s Sultanahmet Square on Tuesday, Al Arabiya News reported on Jan. 16, 2016.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Thursday said Turkey killed 200 ISIS militants, including regional leaders, in 48 hours along the border with Syria and in northern Iraq. He underlined Ankara’s determination to fight ISIS until it leaves border areas.
The latest Turkish strikes complement massive French airstrikes over Mosul in the last week, which hit a key ISIS communication center.
“We may be on the brink of an escalation in the ISIS threat against Turkey,” Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, Ankara office director of the German Marshall Fund, told Al Arabiya News.
Haldun Yalcinkaya, a former lieutenant colonel at the Turkish Military Academy, and current head of the international relations department at Ankara’s TOBB Economics and Technology University, told Al Arabiya News that Turkey’s recent actions in Syria and Iraq “indicate that the degree of its reaction has increased. This is a very clear message to ISIS.”