GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Syria pulled both Turkey and Israel closer to military entanglements in its civil war, bombing a rebel-held Syrian village a few yards from the Turkish border in a deadly aerial assault for the second day on Tuesday after provoking Israeli tank commanders in the disputed Golan Heights into blasting a mobile Syrian artillery unit across their own armistice line a day earlier.
[h=6]The New York Times[/h]Syria has escalated its civil war near Turkey and Israel.
The escalations, which threatened once again to draw in two of Syria’s most powerful neighbors, came hours after the fractious Syrian opposition announced a broad new unity pact that elicited praise from the big foreign powers backing its effort to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
“It is a big day for the Syrian opposition,” wrote Joshua Landis, an expert on Syrian political history and the author of the widely followed Syria Comment blog. Professor Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, wrote that the “Assad regime must be worried, as it has survived for 42 years thanks to Syria’s fragmentation.”
There has been speculation that Mr. Assad, feeling increasingly threatened, may deliberately seek to widen the conflict that has consumed much of his country for the last 20 months, leaving roughly 40,000 people dead and over 400,000 refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Although there was no indication that Mr. Assad was trying to lure Israel into the fight, any Israeli involvement could rally his failing support and frustrate the efforts of his Arab adversaries.
The attack on the Turkish border, by what Syrian witnesses identified as a Syrian MIG-25 warplane, demolished at least 15 buildings and killed at least 20 people on Monday in the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain, the scene of heavy fighting for days and an impromptu crossing point for thousands of Syrians clambering for safety in Turkey.
News agencies reported that a Syrian jet attacked near the town again on Tuesday morning. One person was killed and three were wounded, according to an official on the Turkish side of the border who was quoted by The Associated Press.
Shop and house windows in Ceylanpinar, just across the border, were shattered by the bombing’s force, and Turkish television showed people on both sides of the border running in panic as military vehicles raced down streets and a huge cloud of smoke hung over the area after the first attack.
There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries in Ceylanpinar. But the Turkish authorities, increasingly angered by what they view as Syrian provocations, have deployed troops and artillery units along the 550-mile border with Syria and have raised the idea of installing Patriot missile batteries that could deter Syrian military aircraft.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, sent a diplomatic note to Syria on Monday to protest the Ras al-Ain bombing, the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency reported.
Civilians in southern Turkey’s provinces of Hatay, Sanliurfa and Gaziantep, where the government has erected camps for Syrian refugees, have been advised not to travel close to the border.
In Israel, the military said Israeli tanks that are deployed in the Golan Heights, which the Israelis seized from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, had made a direct hit on a Syrian mobile artillery launcher on Monday after consecutive days of erratic mortar fire coming from the Syrian side of the armistice line.
Military officials and analysts in Israel said that they viewed the shelling by the Syrian government forces as unintentional spillover and that Israel had no desire to get involved in the Syria conflict.
But some Israelis said that after four decades of relative stability in the Golan area, the Assad government may be trying to push them into a fight that could galvanize Arab hostility toward Israel and distract attention from its own problems.
Others said Mr. Assad was unlikely to want to provoke Israel, afraid of a crushing response that could weaken him militarily. If, for example, an errant Syrian shell hit a school filled with children on the Israeli side, said Prof. Moshe Maoz at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a strong Israeli strike on Syrian government forces would be all but guaranteed. “Assad knows very well that Israel does not have a sense of humor here and can retaliate very heavily,” he said.
Sebnem Arsu reported from Gaziantep, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem, Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon, and Richard Berry from Paris.
[h=6]The New York Times[/h]Syria has escalated its civil war near Turkey and Israel.
The escalations, which threatened once again to draw in two of Syria’s most powerful neighbors, came hours after the fractious Syrian opposition announced a broad new unity pact that elicited praise from the big foreign powers backing its effort to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
“It is a big day for the Syrian opposition,” wrote Joshua Landis, an expert on Syrian political history and the author of the widely followed Syria Comment blog. Professor Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, wrote that the “Assad regime must be worried, as it has survived for 42 years thanks to Syria’s fragmentation.”
There has been speculation that Mr. Assad, feeling increasingly threatened, may deliberately seek to widen the conflict that has consumed much of his country for the last 20 months, leaving roughly 40,000 people dead and over 400,000 refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Although there was no indication that Mr. Assad was trying to lure Israel into the fight, any Israeli involvement could rally his failing support and frustrate the efforts of his Arab adversaries.
The attack on the Turkish border, by what Syrian witnesses identified as a Syrian MIG-25 warplane, demolished at least 15 buildings and killed at least 20 people on Monday in the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain, the scene of heavy fighting for days and an impromptu crossing point for thousands of Syrians clambering for safety in Turkey.
News agencies reported that a Syrian jet attacked near the town again on Tuesday morning. One person was killed and three were wounded, according to an official on the Turkish side of the border who was quoted by The Associated Press.
Shop and house windows in Ceylanpinar, just across the border, were shattered by the bombing’s force, and Turkish television showed people on both sides of the border running in panic as military vehicles raced down streets and a huge cloud of smoke hung over the area after the first attack.
There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries in Ceylanpinar. But the Turkish authorities, increasingly angered by what they view as Syrian provocations, have deployed troops and artillery units along the 550-mile border with Syria and have raised the idea of installing Patriot missile batteries that could deter Syrian military aircraft.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, sent a diplomatic note to Syria on Monday to protest the Ras al-Ain bombing, the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency reported.
Civilians in southern Turkey’s provinces of Hatay, Sanliurfa and Gaziantep, where the government has erected camps for Syrian refugees, have been advised not to travel close to the border.
In Israel, the military said Israeli tanks that are deployed in the Golan Heights, which the Israelis seized from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, had made a direct hit on a Syrian mobile artillery launcher on Monday after consecutive days of erratic mortar fire coming from the Syrian side of the armistice line.
Military officials and analysts in Israel said that they viewed the shelling by the Syrian government forces as unintentional spillover and that Israel had no desire to get involved in the Syria conflict.
But some Israelis said that after four decades of relative stability in the Golan area, the Assad government may be trying to push them into a fight that could galvanize Arab hostility toward Israel and distract attention from its own problems.
Others said Mr. Assad was unlikely to want to provoke Israel, afraid of a crushing response that could weaken him militarily. If, for example, an errant Syrian shell hit a school filled with children on the Israeli side, said Prof. Moshe Maoz at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a strong Israeli strike on Syrian government forces would be all but guaranteed. “Assad knows very well that Israel does not have a sense of humor here and can retaliate very heavily,” he said.
Sebnem Arsu reported from Gaziantep, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem, Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon, and Richard Berry from Paris.