Turkey Hits Syria for Second Day, Adds War Powers
Turkey Hits Syria, Adds War Powers
Turkey attacked targets inside Syria for a second day Thursday and its parliament authorized military offensives into foreign countries, deepening the threat of sustained conflict along the neighbors’ 565-mile common border.
Syria, at the United Nations, castigated its neighbor for policies it said were fueling the conflict.
Ankara’s military and legislative moves came a day after Syrian shells landed in the Turkish border town of Akcakale, killing five people and spurring Turkish retaliatory strikes.
In spite of the military authorizations passed earlier in the day, Turkish officials suggested Thursday that further armed action isn’t likely imminent. The day’s moves underscored how Ankara, while it has the vocal backing of its international allies after the attack on its territory, appears to have no partners for broader military action.
Turkey conducted nearly 12 hours of artillery attacks that lasted into early Thursday, according to residents in Akcakale and the Syrian government. The strikes targeted a Syrian army position several miles inside Syrian territory from Akcakale, Turkey said.
Syrian rebel fighters said Thursday that the target of Turkish shelling was a Syrian forward operating base in Tal Abyad, about nine miles from Turkey’s border. Fourteen Syrian soldiers were killed, they said, a claim that couldn’t be independently verified. Syrian officials said two officers were wounded.
Syria’s government is still investigating who fired the shells Wednesday, Syria’s envoy to the United Nations, Bashar Ja’afari, told the Security Council, saying that Damascus wouldn’t apologize until it was determined who was responsible. “Our forces practiced self-restraint and did not respond to this Turkish artillery shelling,” he said, adding that Syria expressed condolences for the Turkish “martyrs.”