Syria Fighting Rages on Turkish Border, near Golan Line
Syrian aircraft bombed the strategic border town of Ras al-Ain on Monday, killing at least four people and sending panicked residents fleeing into Turkey, an AFP photographer reported.
Fighting also raged close to the armistice line on the Golan Heights where a stray mortar round on Sunday prompted the first retaliatory fire by Israel since the 1973 Middle East war, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The intensifying clashes on Syria's borders have stoked fears the 20-month conflict risks spilling over and drawing in neighbouring countries, and drew a call for restraint from U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon late on Sunday.
One bomb dropped on Ras al-Ain exploded less than 150 meter from the border, with the force of the blast blowing out windows in houses in the adjacent Turkish town of Ceylanpinar.
The blast killed four Syrians and wounded scores of others, around 20 of them seriously, according to the Anatolia news agency.
"There are wounded on the Syrian side but also in Ceylanpinar because of the windows blown out by the explosion," it quoted Ceylanpinar Mayor Ismail Arslan as saying.
"The ambulances are transporting the wounded without stopping," he said. "There is bomb damage everywhere."
The strike targeted a food factory which rebels seized in the past several days, Anatolia said.
The Observatory said 12 people were killed in a blast in Ras al-Ain, although it could not immediately say if it was the same bomb.
The dead included five civilians and seven rebels -- mostly loyalists of the jihadist Al-Nusra Front, said the watchdog which bases it casualty tolls on a network of doctors and activists in civilian and military hospitals.
Ras al-Ain is one of just two Turkish border crossings still controlled by the Syrian army. Rebels fighting to bring down President Bashar Assad have captured four others while a seventh is controlled by Kurdish militia.
Syrian forces and rebels have been involved in furious fighting in the area during the past week, sending 9,000 Syrians fleeing into Turkey in the space of just 24 hours.
On the Golan Heights, rebels clashed with troops near the U.N.-monitored ceasefire line early Monday just hours after the UN chief appealed for restraint around the sensitive demilitarized zone, the Observatory reported.
Israel fired a warning shot into Syria on Sunday after a mortar round from the Syrian side hit an Israeli position in the part of the Golan it has occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.
"The secretary general is deeply concerned by the potential for escalation," said Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky.
"He calls for the utmost restraint" and urges both sides to uphold the 1974 accord which set up the ceasefire line and surrounding demilitarized zone.
Senior officers in the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force have demanded the Syrian army withdraw from the zone, U.N. officials said.
On the Jordanian frontier, shelling and clashes killed two Syrian border guards, the Observatory said.
Warplanes also bombed rebel positions on the strategic highway between Damascus and second city Aleppo, while clashes on the southern outskirts of the capital killed five civilians, it added.
Fighter jets carried out five bombing runs on the rebel-held highway town of Maaret al-Numan, dropping barrels packed with explosives, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.
The rebels' capture of Maaret al-Numan last month delivered a severe blow to the government's ability to reinforce its troops in Aleppo which have been under rebel attack since mid-July.
A total of 120 people were killed in violence on Sunday, bringing to more than 37,000 the number killed since March last year, the Observatory said.
Source: Agence France Presse
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