Turkey retaliates after Syrian attack

Turkish artillery struck back at Syria on Friday after two Syrian shells landed in Turkish territory, the state-run television TRT reported. The television network said the shells fell into an empty field in Hatay province near the Syrian border. There was no report of casualties. A Turkish foreign ministry official, contacted by AFP, was not immediately able to confirm the report but he said: "It has now become a routine for Turkish border units to retaliate after every single shell fired from Syria falls into Turkish soil." Turkey has been retaliating systematically on each occasion that its border with Syria has been breached by mortar bombs or shells since Syrian fire killed five Turks on October 3. On Wednesday, border troops in Hatay province fired off a mortar strike at Syria, in retaliation for a Syrian bomb that struck Turkish territory but caused no casualties. One-time allies Turkey and Syria fell out after Ankara joined Arab and Western countries in urging Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to halt his violent crackdown on the popular uprising that erupted in March last year and has now turned into a civil war. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Friday called for the regime in Damascus to immediately stop deadly aerial bombing of rebel targets and for the two sides to observe a truce during the Eid Al-Adha Muslim holiday. "It is particularly important that the Syrian regime immediately stop and without conditions, the recent attacks against the population with planes and helicopters," Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara. The Turkish chief diplomat was echoing a call for a truce made by UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as Syrian fighter jets blasted a rebel-held town on Thursday, killing at least 49 people, including 23 children. The four-day Eid al-Adha holiday will start on October 26 this year.