Syria-Turkey tensions boil
- Regime force recaptures key M5 motorway
- UN says Idlib displacement worst since start of war
Tensions escalated yesterday between Syria's regime and rebel-backer Turkey as a Syrian military helicopter was shot down and Ankara warned of a "heavy price" for any attacks on its forces.
The new flare-up, a day after regime shelling killed five Turkish troops, came as government forces battling rebels in northwestern Syria took full control of a key highway linking the country's four largest cities.
The advance marked another step in President Bashar al-Assad's campaign to retake Syria's last rebel-held pocket, where nearly 700,000 civilians have fled violence since December in the largest exodus since the start of the war, according to UN.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the regime helicopter was hit by a rocket fired by Turkish forces, though Ankara did not claim responsibility. Two pilots were killed.
Erdogan said Turkish troops would continue to respond to Syrian regime attacks.
"The more they attack... our soldiers, they will pay a very, very heavy price," he told a televised ceremony in Ankara.
Ankara said on Monday it had "neutralised" 101 Syria regime troops in response to the deadly artillery attack on its position in Idlib, but that information could not be verified independently. Neither the Observatory nor Damascus reported any casualties among Syrian troops on Monday. Erdogan said he would reveal his next steps today.
He spoke after Syria regime forces retook full control of the key M5 highway from jihadists and allied rebels in the northwest of the country for the first time since 2012, the Observatory said. That highway links the capital Damascus to the second city of Aleppo through the cities of Homs and Hama, and has been a key target for the government as it seeks to rekindle a moribund economy.
In Idlib city yesterday, Syrian air force strikes killed at least 12 civilians, the Observatory said. Half of those killed in the strikes were minors, according to the monitor.
Turkey, which already hosts more than three million refugees, fears a massive fresh influx from Syria and has kept its border closed to the newly displaced people in Idlib.
The Idlib region is a dead-end for hundreds of thousands of people who were forced to flee or were evacuated from formerly rebel-held territory elsewhere in Syria. Some have moved four times or more since the start of the war but there is nowhere for them to go after Idlib, with the Turkish border to the north and government forces in the other three directions.
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