U.S. Launches Manned Flights Against ISIS From Turkey

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The flights followed Turkey's decision to host American aircraft supporting Free Syrian Forces.

Aug. 12, 2015, 6:26 PM EDT / Updated Aug. 12, 2015, 6:42 PM EDT

By Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube

The United States launched its first manned anti-ISIS military flights from Turkey on Wednesday, adding to the unmanned drones that began bombing targets in Syria last month.

The first wave of manned flights from Incirlik Air Base included airstrikes as well as patrols, a Defense Department spokesperson said.

Image: A United States Navy aeroplane about to land at the Incirlik Air Base — A United States Navy aeroplane about to land at the Incirlik Air Base, in the outskirts of the city of Adana, southern Turkey, on July 29, 2015.Emrah Gurel / AP, file

The flights followed Turkey's decision to host American aircraft supporting Free Syrian Forces.

The United States has already been flying combat missions against ISIS in Iraq and Syria for more than a year, with most of those missions launching out of Qatar and Jordan and off aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.

The United States began flying unmanned, armed missions from Turkey earlier this month.

Jim Miklaszewski

Jim Miklaszewski is the chief Pentagon correspondent for NBC News. On 9/11, he was the first at the scene to report that the Pentagon had been attacked and has since led the network's coverage of the war in Afghanistan.

Since joining NBC in 1985, Miklaszewski was a White House correspondent during the Clinton and Bush administrations, covering President Clinton's transition from Little Rock, his many trips abroad including Moscow and the Middle East and his reelection. He was also an NBC floor reporter at the Democratic and Republican conventions in 1996 and 2000.

In the Bush White House, Miklaszewski reported on the Gulf War with Iraq, summits with Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin and the Bush reelection campaign in 1992.

Miklaszewski has logged considerable foreign experience with battlefront coverage of wars in Lebanon, El Salvador and the Falkland Islands. He also covered the United States air raid on Libya, and the "tanker wars" in the Persian Gulf.

Courtney Kube

Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

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