A cross-border gunfight erupted Thursday between suspected ISIS
militants in Syria and troops in Turkey, leaving at least one Turkish soldier
dead and prompting Turkey to fire artillery at other positions inside its
southern neighbor, officials said.
Thursday's
incident began when at least five fighters in northern Syria approached the
border and fired on Turkish soldiers, Turkey's military said.
The militants in
Syria were in an area controlled by ISIS, the Islamist terror group that has
captured parts of Syria and Iraq, a Turkish official told CNN on condition of
anonymity.
The fighting
left one Turkish soldier and one attacker dead, with two other Turkish soldiers
hurt, the Turkish military said.
Turkish forces
also responded by using artillery to fire at suspected ISIS positions near
Azaz, Syria, not far from the border, according to Turkey's semiofficial
Anadolu news agency.
The violence
comes three days after one of the deadliest terror attacks to happen in Turkey
in years -- a suicide bombing
that killed at least 31 people in Suruc, another Turkish town that borders
Syria.
Monday's blast
struck a gathering of mostly Kurdish activists calling for more help to rebuild
Kobani, the Syrian city that was the scene of intense fighting last fall
between ISIS and predominantly Kurdish forces.
Turkish Prime
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters Tuesday that early indications pointed
to involvement by ISIS in the Suruc bombing, though an investigation hadn't
been completed.
Davutoglu said
the government would not hesitate in taking action in response to the bombing,
which he suggested was in revenge for the role Turkey is playing in a global
war on terror.
Another Turkish police officer killed
Elsewhere in Turkey, a police officer
was killed in mysterious circumstances on Thursday, a day after two others were
killed apparently over ethnic tensions spurred by Monday's bombing.
In Thursday's
incident, masked attackers shot two police officers who were investigating a
road accident in the southeastern Turkey city of Diyarbakir, Anadolu reported.
One of the officers died, and the other was receiving treatment, the news
agency said.
No claim of
responsibility was immediately made, and authorities said they were
investigating the shooting.
This came one day
after two police officers were killed in their homes in a town in Sanliurfa
province along the Turkey-Syria border.
A group known as
the HPG, the armed wing of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, claimed
responsibility for Wednesday's killings. The group said it was retaliation
against the Turkish authorities for failing to prevent Monday's suicide bombing
in Suruc.
Turkish Deputy
Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters in a press conference on Wednesday
that the investigation into officers' executions was ongoing.
"Whether or
not this group is really related to the PKK or if this was done on an
individual level, or if the (statement) was a propaganda attempt, is being
investigated by our intelligence and our security forces," he said.
"But no matter how we look at it, it is a crime committed by an act of
terror perpetrated by a terrorist group."
Turkey officially
classifies ISIS and the PKK as terrorist organizations.
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