Syrian mortar fire again struck a Turkish border village yesterday, prompting artillery retaliation for the fourth day as fierce fighting rocked the key city of Aleppo and rebels lost ground in Damascus.
The Syrian mortar round struck hit Akcakale – site of a similar strike on Wednesday – as Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said President Bashar al-Assad should be replaced by Vice President Faruq al-Shara.
The mortar round hit the grounds of a public building without causing casualties, Turkey’s NTV news channel reported, adding that the building had been evacuated beforehand.
On Wednesday five civilians were killed in Akcakale in a mortar strike that provoked counter-fire, in the most serious incident since Syrian anti-aircraft fire brought down a Turkish warplane in June.
That incident caused a spike in tensions between the former allies and renewed fears of a broader conflict.
Turkey’s Parliament on Thursday gave the Government the green light to use military force against Syria if necessary. Akcakale’s mayor was quoted by the semi-official Anatolia news agency as saying yesterday’s mortar hit prompted an immediate response by Turkish artillery.
Syria’s commercial capital Aleppo, meanwhile, was rocked by the heaviest fighting of an almost three-month offensive against rebels, residents said.
An AFP correspondent said warplanes were overflying the rebel-held Bab al-Hadid and Shaar neighbourhoods, where witnesses reported fierce fighting.
“This is the worst fighting we’ve seen here since the beginning of the Aleppo war,” one Bab al-Hadid resident said. As fighting raged in Aleppo, state TV said Government forces had pushed rebels out of two of their strongholds in Damascus province, Qudsaya and Hameh. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Government had taken control of Hameh and said the bodies of 21 men were found there.
Since July regime forces have pushed the rebels to the outskirts of the capital but have lost control of several border crossings and are battling to fully retake Aleppo.
The Observatory, which gave a toll of 50 people killed yesterday, also reported that regime forces pounded the rebel-held town of Tal-Abyad in the northern province of Raqa, on the border with Turkey.
Turkey yesterday shelled a Syrian military position south of Tal-Abyad, as part of its retaliation for Wednesday’s killings in Akcakale.
On Saturday, rebels cemented their control of Syria’s northern frontier after seizing the town of Khirbat al-Joz in the northwest province of Idlib after a pitched battle with regime troops, the Observatory said.
Nearly 80 per cent of towns and villages along the border are now outside regime control, according to the Observatory.
With tensions between Turkey and Syria spiking, Davutoglu urged that Shara take the helm in Syria.