Turkey on Friday vowed to press on with operations against Islamic State (IS) in Syria and other militant groups, after its war planes bombed the jihadists' positions for the first time.

Following the pre-dawn air raids on the IS targets in Syria, Turkish police arrested almost 300 suspected members of IS and pro-Kurdish militant groups nationwide, in one of Turkey's biggest recent crackdowns on extremists. 

The Turkish military on Thursday pounded positions held by Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria after a Turkish soldier was killed by fire from an area controlled by the jihadists.

The clashes -- the most serious yet between the Turkish army and IS -- came after the killing of 32 people in a suicide bombing Monday, blamed on IS, sparked an upsurge in violence.  A day after the fatal shooting of two police claimed by Kurdish militants as "revenge" for the suicide bombing in the town of Suruc on the Syrian border, a policeman was shot dead in the majority Kurdish city of Diyarbakir.

Two Syrians among a group of 17 who were wounded when their village was shelled overnight died after crossing the border into nearby Turkey, an official said Monday.

Two other Syrians and a Turkish translator were wounded near a refugee camp in the same area when shots were fired from Syria, as border tension escalated ahead of a visit by top international mediator Kofi Annan.