Turkey lashes out at Syria again

By BASSEM MROUE AND SUZAN FRASER
Published on 07/10/2012 00:00

THE Turkish military fired artillery shells into Syria for a fourth day in a row yesterday, retaliating for mortars that landed on Turkish soil last week, killing five people.

Rebels also clashed with Syrian troops loyal to president Bashar al-Assad near the border amid renewed fears that the Syrian civil war could ­spiral into a wider regional conflict.

Syria’s defence minister, General Fahd Jassem al-Freij, said the rebellion against Assad’s regime would be crushed and that the violence that has engulfed the country would soon be brought to an end.

The latest shelling comes a day after Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ­cautioned the regime in Damascus not to test Turkey’s “limits and determination” and insisted that his country “was not bluffing” with its warnings.

The crisis began on Wednesday, when at least three Syrian mortars landed on the Akcakale district of eastern Sanliurfa killing three children, their mother and a female neighbour. Turkey immediately retailiated with artillery strikes said to have killed Syrian troops near Turkey’s southern border.

Ankara then warned it would no longer tolerate such acts, with parliament voting to give the army the power to hit back without first referring to the executive for authority. Turkey has deployed more troops to its border with Syria, and has responded to each shell that has struck its soil with its own artillery barrage.

Yesterday, two mortar shells landed in rural areas near the Turkish village of Guvecci, prompting return fire, Turkey’s media reported. The first exchange happened shortly after intense fighting broke out across the border in Syria’s Idlib province between Syrian rebels and regime forces, the private Dogan news agency ­reported. There were no reported casualties.

A Turkish army unit based near Guvecci promptly responded, firing four 81mm mortars in the first instance and two shells in the second, the agency said.

The governor’s office indicated that the Syrian mortar had landed in Turkey accidentally, saying it was believed “to be have been fired by the forces of the Syrian Arab Republic at Syrian rebel groups on the Syrian side of the border.”

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels had attacked army positions in the Syrian villages of Khirbet al-Jouz and Darkoush about 16 kilometres (ten miles) from Guvecci. Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said both sides were ­exchanging mortar fire. The Observatory added that rebels later took over Khirbet el-Jouz and were advancing toward army positions in nearby areas. It said dozens of soldiers were either killed or wounded while three rebels died in the fighting.

Relations between Turkey and Syria, once strong allies, deteriorated sharply after the uprising against Assad began in March last year. Turkey ­became one of the harshest critics of Assad’s crackdown, while Syria accused Ankara of aiding rebels.

Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu told state television that “from now on whenever there is an attack on Turkey, it will be silenced”.

Yesterday, Assad made a ­­­rare public appearance when he laid a wreath at the country’s unknown soldier memorial in Damascus to mark the 1973 conflict with Israel, known in Syria as the October War. ­Syrian state television broadcast the ceremony. State media likened the current crisis to the war with Israel.

Damascus continues to deny it is facing a popular uprising, instead blaming the violence on a foreign conspiracy linked to its support for anti-Israeli groups such as Lebanon’s ­Hezbollah.

“There are few differences between the current aggression and the circumstances during the October war, as 
Syria is facing an enemy armed with western and Israeli weapons aiming at destroying the Syrian state and punishing its people for foiling all the hegemonic and hostile schemes planned for the region,” the official news agency, Sana, commented.

Syria’s defence minister also said the government was ready to give amnesty to rebels who repented and that those who did not “will be crushed under the feet of our soldiers”.

Al-Freij, who became
defence minister in July after his predecessor was assassinated, also said Syria’s “armed forces were intent to bring back security and stability to our beloved Syria”.

“The most dangerous parts of the conspiracy have been passed and the killing is on its way to decline,” he said.

Al-Freij, who rarely makes public statements, spoke as Syrian troops launched a major offensive to retake rebel-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo – Syria’s commercial hub – the central city of Homs and towns near the border with Lebanon.

Despite his claims of government troops being on the brink of restoring stability, the violence shows no signs of abating. Activists say that at least 30,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011.

Lebanese security officials, meanwhile, said Syrian troops backed by warplanes and helicopter gunships began a major attack against rebel-held areas near the Syrian town of Quseir close to Lebanon’s Bekaa valley. The Lebanese-Syrian border has also been the site of deadly border incidents.