Turkey claims artillery and jets kill 104 Daesh militants
Pounded by coalition forces near border, but group goes on offensive north of Aleppo
ANKARA, TURKEY— U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and Turkish artillery fire against Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL) in Syria have killed 104 militants, the Turkish military said Saturday.
The state-run Anadolu Agency, quoting military officials, said the strikes came late Friday, hours after rockets fired from Syria hit the southern Turkish town of Kilis and wounded five people. It said the airstrikes and artillery fire also destroyed seven buildings used as Daesh headquarters.
The claim could not be independently verified, and Turkey has not explained how it can count casualties in Syria.
On Saturday, the Turkish military also retaliated after two rockets landed in a field near the town of Oguzeli in the border province of Gaziantep, Anadolu reported. The private Dogan news agency said one of the rockets landed in a garden close to Gaziantep airport, but did not cause any injuries or damage.
Cross-border fire from Syria has claimed 21lives and wounded dozens in Kilis this year.
Turkish authorities blame the at- tacks on Daesh, which has a presence in northern Syria. Turkey typically responds by shelling Daesh positions.
Meanwhile, Daesh militants entered a major Syrian opposition stronghold in the country’s north on Saturday, clashing with rebels on the edges of the town as the extremist group builds on its most significant advance near the Turkish border in two years — even as it loses ground elsewhere in the country and in neighbouring Iraq.
The town of Marea, just north of Aleppo, has long been considered a bastion of relatively moderate Syrian revolutionary forces fighting to topple President Bashar Assad. The Daesh assault underlined the weakness of the groups fighting under the loose banner of the so-called Free Syrian Army that have been struggling to survive.
More than 160,000 civilians have been trapped by the fighting, which also forced the evacuation of one of the few remaining hospitals in the area, run by the international medical organization Doctors Without Borders.
On Saturday, Daesh fighters staged two suicide bombings targeting “opposition forces” near Marea, Daesh said via its news agency, Aamaq.
Following the suicide bombings, Daesh militants entered Marea and fighting began inside the town.