A Turkish soldier was killed and another wounded in clashes with the self-styled Islamic State (IS) across the Syrian border on Thursday, a senior Turkish official said, days after a suicide bombing blamed on the Islamist radical group killed 32 people.
“Turkish soldiers returned fire after shots came from the Syrian side of the border, from the region where IS militants are. The clash is going on at the moment,” the official said.
Local media reports said the clashes were close to the village of Elbeyli, east of the Turkish town of Kilis, and an area where the armed forces have sent reinforcements in recent weeks.
The Turkish military also retaliated and pounded positions of IS militants in Syria after a Turkish soldier was killed by cross-border fire from jihadists, in a drastic escalation of tensions between Ankara and the extremist group.
“Three vehicles belonging to the IS terrorists were fired on and heavily damaged,” the army said.
The army said that one IS militant had also been killed. His corpse, a rocket launcher and an AK-47 used by the militants had been seized, the army said, without specifying if troops had crossed into Syria to take them.
The deadly clash was the most serious yet between the Turkish army and IS since the group began to take swathes of Iraq and Syria right up to the Turkish border from 2013.
