Turkey Accuses Syria of Shelling Military Outpost

No Casualties Reported in Incident

Turkey is accusing the Syrian government of having fired mortar shells against one of their military bases in the southeastern Hatay Province, an attack which coincided with shelling from Kurdish forces against the same part of Turkey.

Syria has not confirmed involvement in the strike, but the statement from Turkey’s military claimed that the shelling originated from territory that they believe to have been under control of Syrian military forces.

It’s not clear why the Syrian military would attack a Turkish border post far from any territory the government still controls, but Turkey would clearly be quite eager to make such claims, as it provides a justification for retaliatory strikes, and potentially raids to seize more territory for their rebel allies.

Turkey’s military also claimed to have “responded in kind” to the Syrian military, but didn’t detail what, exactly, they attacked, and there has yet to be any word out of Syria of anything being hit other than Kurdish territory.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.