Syrian rocket fire kills one in Turkey border town

ISTANBUL — One person was killed and one more seriously wounded Monday when a rocket fired from a militant-controlled area in Syria slammed into a schoolyard in a Turkish border town, officials said.

A female school cleaner was killed and a schoolgirl required an operation for her injuries in the strike on the town of Kilis just north of the border with Syria, the local governor's office said.

The town was hit by a total of three rockets, two of which fell into an open area while one more hit the yard, it said.

The rocket fire "came from Syria", it added, without giving further details. Reports said two more were lightly wounded.

Earlier reports had described the fire as mortar shells but later Turkish media reports described the objects as Katyusha-type rockets.

Television pictures showed the casualties being taken to hospital by ambulance. Windows on the ground floor of the school had been smashed by the impact of the blast while one car was severely damaged. 

"The people should not allow provocations. Kilis residents should stay calm," Kilis mayor Hasan Kara told NTV television.

'Daesh-controlled area' 

Kilis, a town of just under 100,000, lies north of the Syrian border, some 10 kilometres from the Syrian town of Azaz.

Turkish officials have said it is the only town in Turkey with a majority of Syrians, some of the estimated 2.2 million living in Turkey who have fled the civil war at home. 

That area of northern Syria south of Kilis has in the last months been the scene of fierce clashes involving Daesh militants who have seized swathes of northern Syria.

The Hurriyet daily said that the army had found the fire came from an area in Syria controlled by Daesh and the armed forces had already returned fire on Daesh-controlled positions.

According to the Anatolia news agency, army radar showed the rockets came from a distance of 20 kilometres away and Turkish forces were able to destroy the launch positions with their fire.

Turkey has said that it is working to push Daesh out of the border zone, which the extremist group controlled on the Syrian side for much of 2015.

A suicide bomber who the Turkish authorities say was a member of Daesh killed 10 German tourists last week in the centre of Istanbul, the first time that foreigners have been targeted by such an attack in Turkey.

Turkish ground forces then pounded some 500 positions of Daesh in Syria and Iraq with artillery and tank fire over a 48-hour period, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.

Turkey has often been criticised by its Western allies for not doing enough to combat Daesh militants.

But Ankara last year stepped up its involvement in the US-led coalition against IS, hosting American war planes at its Incirlik Air Base for deadly raids against the militants and conducting air strikes of its own.

It is also relying on pro-Ankara Turkmen Syrian fighters who are on the ground in northwestern Syria to fight both Daesh militants and the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Turkish media reports have said Turkish jets are no longer flying over Syria after the shooting down of a Russian war plane on November 24 by one of Turkey's jets led to an unprecedented crisis in relations between Moscow and Ankara.

Turkey has also repeatedly said it does not want Kurdish militia forces — who are themselves bitterly opposed to Daesh — advancing westward of the Euphrates River in northern Syria.

Davutoglu said last week that Turkey would carry on fighting Daesh "until it leaves the Turkish border area completely”.