The reporter of this Wall Street Journal news report gingerly hints at the real reason for these troubles near the end of the report (he is probably careful because he is based in Istanbul and doesn't want to be thrown in jail -- our NATO "ally" Turkey has the most journalists in jail of any country in the world -- more than China, Iran, Russia...).
Erdogan, having lost majority control of Parliament several months ago and the ability to maintain indefinite dictatorial power, decided to create problems with the Kurds, the largest ethnic minority in Turkey (between 16-25% of the population), who had successfully melded with his centrist opposition to defeat his efforts in the last election. The solution is an age-old one for Turkish leaders -- create problems with the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist liberation movement (though not nearly as extremist in its methods as ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah or Hamas, among other terrorist organizations in the Middle East) , and get the rest of Turkey to rally around the flag against the Kurds in general, both moderate and extreme.
How does Erdogan accomplish this? After years of rebuffed US requests, the Turks finally recently allowed US use of Turkish airbases and the establishment of a safe air zone on the Syrian border, and the commencement of air attacks on ISIS from those bases. Of course, as the reporter indicates, the Turks used this as an excuse to go after Kurdish forces in that region, primarily (but not exclusively) the PKK, while we were going after ISIS. It is worth noting that Turkey had, until now, largely allowed ISIS to use its border area as a logistical staging area for infiltration into Syria, has been the principal conduit of ISIS oil and other logistics with the outside world and, accordingly, has been indispensable in ISIS's growth.
The PKK, with whom Turkey had a truce that was working, reacts as you would expect them to -- they redouble hostilities against Turkey, including the wave of attacks reported on by the WSJ in the attached article, thus playing into Erdogan's hands of driving a wedge between Kurdish centrists and the mainstream Turkish opposition to Erdogan. The hoped for result by Erdogan? New elections and the firming up of his power.
Therefore, the recent cooperation with the US over the Turkish airbases has nothing to do with Turkey being an ally. Turkey is run by an anti-democratic Muslim Brotherhood-rooted Islamist government that seeks to undermine democracy in Turkey, and has shown very little stomach for working with us to defeat ISIS.
Know who your "friends" are.
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