Shells fired into Turkey as Syria offensive extends into 2nd day

AKCAKALE, TURKEY — Shells and rockets landed in several Turkish border towns on Thursday, killing four civilians, one of them an infant, and wounding 70, in a sharp escalation of the conflict between Turkey and the Kurdish-led militia that fought alongside U.S. forces in the campaign against Islamist extremists in northern Syria.

The attack came as a Turkish offensive against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria entered its second day, with Turkish troops continuing an air and ground assault against the Kurdish groups, killing at least 23 Kurds, rights groups reported.

By Thursday morning, Turkey had conducted 181 airstrikes in the area, its Defence Ministry said. The Turks also used cranes to remove parts of a concrete border wall, allowing Turkish troops, Turkish-backed Syrian Arab rebels and military vehicles to enter Kurdish-held territory in northern Syria.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Mesut Cavusoglu, said that Turkish forces did not plan to go further than about 30 kilometres deep into Syrian territory, a distance he said was needed to stop Kurdish fighters from firing missiles into Turkey.

Cavusoglu said that ultimately Turkey planned to seize a corridor stretching for hundreds of kilometres along the Turkish-Syrian border, but he did not say when.

“We will do that in time,” he said in an interview on Turkish television.

On Thursday afternoon, Kurdish fighters appeared to return fire, as three sharp explosions in the border town of Akcakale filled streets with smoke, and sent pedestrians fleeing for cover and armoured police vehicles barrelling through the streets.