Turkey strikes IS and Kurdish positions in Syria ahead of offensive

 

Turkey has bombarded so-called Islamic State (IS) targets at Jarablus in northern Syria amid reports Syrian rebels are to launch an offensive against the group.

Some 1,500 Turkish-backed Syrian rebels are thought to be in the Turkish town of Gaziantep waiting to attack.

A bomb attack on a wedding there killed more than 50 people on Saturday.
Turkey also shelled positions at Manbij held by Kurdish YPG fighters, who have been advancing against IS.

Mark Lowen in Gaziantep says the imminent offensive may have spurred the suicide bombing in Gaziantep, thought to be the work of IS.

However Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says the identity of the bomber - initially thought to be a child - has not yet been established.
More victims of the blast are being identified and our correspondent says the wave of bombings in Turkey could intensify as the country becomes ever more embroiled in the Syrian war.

   A New York Times reporter gave the ages of the children killed in Gaziantep                

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said IS should be "completely cleansed" from northern Syria.
A coalition including Syrian Kurdish YPG forces has been pushing IS out of Syrian towns, including Manbij.
However the Turkish bombardment has also struck YPG positions north of Manbij, Turkish TV reported.
Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Turkish-Kurdish rebel group fighting for autonomy within Turkey since the 1980s.

 

Kurds accuse Turkey of using the US-led coalition against IS as a cover to attack the PKK in both Turkey and Iraq, and now against the YPG in northern Syria.
The Kurds say Turkey's bombardment of their positions is helping IS to attack Kurdish-held frontline areas in Syria and Iraq.
Turkish bombardments have also angered Iraqi Kurds, since IS has increased its attacks against Iraqi Kurdish forces in the Makhmur area near the city of Mosul.
"Turkey shamelessly and openly backs IS and al-Qaeda terrorists against Kurdish freedom fighters," Sadi Pria, a top Iraqi Kurdish official in Irbil, has said.

 

 

 

Thirteen of those killed in Gaziantep were women, Turkish media said. Sixty-six people are still in hospital, 14 of them in a serious condition, Dogan news agency reported.

A disproportionately large number of women and children were killed in the attack because it targeted henna night, a part of the celebration attended mainly by women and children, says BBC Monitoring's Turkey analyst Pinar Sevinclidir.

Hurriyet newspaper said the type of bomb, which contained scraps of metal, was similar to those used in previous attacks on pro-Kurdish gatherings.
Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, is known to contain several IS cells.