Turkish artillery fires in northern Syria after border town hit
CGTN
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Turkey continued to fire artillery at a US-backed Kurdish militia in northern Syria on Sunday, after Turkey's state media said four rockets from Syria had hit a Turkish border town.
The cross-border fire marked the second day of Turkey's new front in the nearly seven-year-old Syrian civil war. Under "Operation Olive Branch," Turkish airstrikes on Saturday pounded positions of the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia in the northern Afrin province.
A Reuters reporter at the Oncupinar gate on the Turkish side of the border with Syria could hear the boom of outgoing artillery, with one being fired roughly every three minutes.
Smoke rises from the Syria's Afrin region, as it is pictured from near the Turkish town of Hassa, on the Turkish-Syrian border in Hatay province, Turkey, Jan. 20, 2018. /Reuters Photo

Smoke rises from the Syria's Afrin region, as it is pictured from near the Turkish town of Hassa, on the Turkish-Syrian border in Hatay province, Turkey, Jan. 20, 2018. /Reuters Photo

Military convoys were traveling near the gate, with one transporter carrying several tanks.
"In its second day, #OliveBranchOperation continues to ensure peace and security for our people, protect Syria's territorial integrity and eliminate all terrorist elements in the region," Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, said on Twitter.
Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency earlier reported that four rockets fired from Syria hit the border town of Kilis overnight, damaging houses. Turkish security forces retaliated in kind, it said.
The operation pits Turkey against Kurdish fighters allied to the US at a time when ties between Turkey and Washington – NATO allies and members of the coalition against ISIL – appear dangerously close to a breaking point.
Saturday's strikes on the Syrian-Kurdish YPG militia hit some 108 targets, the Turkish military said. On land, the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army rebels were also helping the operation in Afrin, Turkish officials have said.
The Turkish Armed Forces released a video footage on Saturday, showing a strike of a tunnel in Afrin. The tunnel was reportedly used to store ammunition. 
Turkey sees the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has carried out a deadly, three-decade insurgency in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. The US is backing the YPG in Syria, seeing it as an effective partner in the fight against ISIL.
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Source(s): Reuters