Turkey beefs up military presence near Syrian border after clashes

ANKARA, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Turkey has been beefing up its military presence along the Syrian border following the clashes between a Syrian Kurdish armed party and al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, local daily Hurriyet reported Friday.

Turkish F-16 jets and unmanned aerial vehicles scrambled from their base in Turkey's southeastern province of Diyarbakir for patrolling over the border town of Ras al-Ayn, according to the report.

People's Defense Units, the militant wing of the Democratic Union Party, an affiliate of the banned Kurdish Workers' Party, and Nusra Front have been engaged in a fight for three days in the Syrian town of Ras al-Ayn, near the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar in the province of Sanliurfa.

The Turkish Armed Forces also dispatched soldiers and tanks to the border and Turkey had returned fire into the Syrian territory on July 17, after shots fired from the Syrian side killed one Turkish citizen and seriously wounded two others.

In October 2012, a mortar bomb fired from the Syrian side landed in the southeastern Turkish town of Akcakale, killing a woman and four children and wounding at least 13 others.

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