JUST a day after Turkey at last went on the attack against Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria, it turned its guns on its longstanding foes the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK has fought intermittently for decades to establish Kurdish autonomy in Turkey, but had observed a tentative cease-fire for the past two years while its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, negotiated a peace deal with the government. The PKK was the first to break the ceasefire when it killed four Turkish policemen last week. On July 25th Turkish jets retaliated, bombing PKK camps in Iraq. The PKK struck back the following day with a car-bomb attack against a Turkish military convoy in the eastern town of Lice that killed two soldiers, according to the army.

The fighting has put a definitive end to the cease-fire between the government and the PKK. It also complicates Turkey’s newfound eagerness to participate in the American-led military effort to destroy IS. While America considers the PKK a terrorist organisation, it supports Kurdish fighters in Syria known as the People’s Defence Units (YPG), who are closely allied with the group. They have begun establishing Kurdish-ruled cantons wherever they liberate territory in Syria. Turkey may have signed on to the American-led military effort to destroy IS, but the attacks show that it is determined to limit the growing power of the Kurds that has resulted from that campaign.

Meawhile, the Turkish attacks clearly have domestic political motivations. The ruling Justice and Development (AK) party lost its governing majority in elections on June 7th when, for the first time, the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP) cleared the 10% threshhold for representation in parliament. The AK has been unwilling to make the needed compromises to form a coalition government, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president, may need to call snap elections in the fall. During his long term as prime minister, Mr Erdogan was renowned for his pragmatic approach to the Kurdish question, but he has taken an anti-Kurdish nationalist slant since being elected president last year.

Many believe the government has taken advantage of the opportunity to attack the PKK and whip up popular anti-Kurdish sentiments, hoping that new elections would give the HDP less than 10% of the vote. That could give the AK an overwhelming majority in parliament—enough to allow Mr Erdogan to complete his pet project of changing the constitution and giving Turkey an executive presidency. America is nervous about the new Turkish campaign against the Kurds, which it fears will weaken the effort against IS. Mr Erdogan professes that he still wants to make peace with Kurds inside Turkey. But with many Kurds in Turkey strongly sympathetic to the PKK, bombing the group’s camps seems an unlikely way to achieve that goal.