Turkey Fires Back at Syria a Fourth Day in a Row
Turkey Fires on Syria After Mortar Lands on Its Side of Border
Turkey fired artillery into Syria for a fourth consecutive day on Saturday after another Syrian mortar shell landed on the Turkish side of the increasingly tense border.
The exchanges — and Turkey’s recent warnings to Syria that it would defend itself — have raised fears of regional conflict. While stray shells and bullets from the Syrian conflict have often landed in Lebanon and Turkey, for the first time a Syrian shell killed five Turkish civilians on Wednesday, prompting Turkey’s response.
Both Syria and Turkey on Saturday denied that Syria had pulled its forces back six miles from the border to avoid provoking Turkey, as Turkish news media had reported on Friday. A Turkish government official dismissed the reports as unreliable.