Conflict flares on Turkey’s border

AT least three people were killed and 10 others were injured after suspected Kurdish militants in Syria fired rockets into a border town in Turkey, officials said.

The rockets struck a high school and two houses in the town of Karkamis, in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, as well as a truck near a Turkish-Syrian border post, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Turkish interior minister Suleyman Soylu said the dead include a teacher and a child, who were killed in one area. One of the rockets landed on the grounds of a school but there were no fatalities at the school.

A soldier and seven police officers were wounded overnight in separate shelling by suspected Kurdish militants that targeted a border area in Kilis, Mr Soylu said. He added that Turkey would respond to the attacks “in the strongest way possible”.

The rocket attacks came days after Turkey launched deadly airstrikes over northern regions of Syria and Iraq, targeting Kurdish groups that Ankara holds responsible for a November 13 bomb attack in Istanbul. The Turks attacked bases of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Syrian People’s Protection Units, officials said.