Turkey retaliates at Syria for a fifth day

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Published time: October 07, 2012 13:25
Edited time: October 12, 2012 16:41

Turkish soldiers take their position at the Akcakale border gate in southern Sanliurfa province October 7, 2012 (Reuters / Stringer)

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Turkey has returned artillery fire at Syria for a fifth consecutive day, after mortar from Syria landed in the Turkish border town of Akcakale.

The shell landed some 200 meters inside Turkey, AP reported. According to Reuters, it hit near a plant belonging to the Turkish Grain board, several hundred meters away from the city center.

A short time later, at least six mortars could be heard fired from Turkey. Abdulhakim Ayhan, the mayor of Akcakale, confirmed that Turkish artillery immediately returned fire.

No casualties have been reported.

Turkish forces also returned fire after another mortar bomb hit a non-residential area in the Hatay province some two hundreds meters away from the Syrian border, Reuters reported quoting local officials. The bomb, believed to have been launched by Syrian government troops, did not result in casualties in the district of Altinozu.

These are the latest moves in the already tense relationship between the neighboring countries.

The crisis began on Wednesday, when Syrian mortar shells killed a woman and four children from the same family in Akcakale. The shells also wounded at least 13 people.

The incident triggered artillery strikes by neighboring Turkey. Ankara has deployed additional troops to its southern border with Syria.

"Many critics believe these shells are being fired deliberately. This border area is controlled by rebels and it is possible that theyre firing these rounds to provoke turkey to go to NATO and call for foreign intervention," RT correspondent in the region Paula Slier said.

Meanwhile, Turkey's prime minister says that he won’t allow the events to go unprovoked and will declare war if necessary – leading to growing concern that the conflict will result in regional instability.

"You have to be ready at every moment to go to war if it is necessary. If you are not ready for this, you are not a state, if you are not ready for this, you are not a nation,” said Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The PM reiterated that Turkey does not want war, but warned Syria not to test its resolve.

"Nobody should attempt to test Turkey's decisiveness and sensibility,” Erdogan stated in a speech on Sunday.

Turkish troops take their position at the Akcakale border gate in southern Sanliurfa province October 7, 2012 (Reuters / Stringer)

Comments (82)

jha (unregistered) 08.10.2012 19:46

Parbes wrote in #9
... That's because the scum Western "leaders" are brai nwashing their dumbed-down populations into believing they're engaged in a "war against terrorism" with Islamic extremists who want to destroy the Western "way of life". In reality, however, the greedy and evil, but short-sighted Weste rn "elites" care mostly about increasing their own wealth and power; they actually fight only a small subset of Islamic extremists who directly attack their interests. They're IN BED WITH the vast majority of them, supporting them, cooperating with them and using them as proxies to wage war against various countries and governments (usually secular, socialistic or nationalistic, but always INDEPENDENT-MINDED)� �which they don't like - and have been doing so for DECADES now! They don't mind helping the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabis etc. take over entire NATIONS, starting wars and bombing the hell out of those countries to aid them in doing so, as long as the Islamists promise them some economic and political benefits in return! (Of course, if and when these Islamists actually achieve global-scale power, these Western "elites" will either suffer a horrible death or become servants of the Islamist masters; and the Western societies will be destroyed - but that prospect is too distant for their nasty little "profit"-oriented pigbrains to process, just yet...). The current Western "rulers" MUST be taken down - there is no other way...
---------------- -------------------- -------------------- ----------i agree with you but i don't think that anyone will be the master of anything....only a great number of decent people in the West and Middle East will die...The "elite" are out of control and are arrogant enough to think that they will survive WW3...What is lacking in the West is the freedom of the press...In the 1970's you had courageous and intelligent Journalists and movie makers that could brought the "elite" on its knees by only telling the truth...

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Do it (unregistered) 08.10.2012 11:00

Yawn, Turkish border skirmishes? Turkey and her master know that when push comes to shove they wouldn't be a factor.Invincible aircraft carriers? Yawn !!!. They are ocean sitting ducks on the vast ocean and money sucked into the ocean by a giant sucking sound. Check one of the Russian killers of these metal wastes on the oceans: http://www. youtube.com/watch?v= YXwHgn1_Xxc

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Davidm 08.10.2012 10:01

Is it really worth 31,000 people (and counting) to die, so one man (Assad) can keep his job, Russia seems to think so.

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