ISTANBUL (AP) – Two Turkish soldiers were killed and five were wounded in a missile attack Tuesday by the Islamic State group in northern Syria – the first Turkish casualties caused by the militants in Turkey’s two-week-old incursion into Syria.
The Turkish fatalities came after Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels on Sunday expelled IS from the last strip of territory the militant group controlled along the Syrian-Turkish border, effectively sealing the extremists’ self-styled caliphate off from the outside world.
Turkey launched the incursion into Syria – the so-called Euphrates Shield operation – to back Syrian rebels in their fight to push IS out of the town of Jarablus and to limit the Syrian Kurdish forces’ advance west of the Euphrates River.
In a statement, Turkey’s military said the militants fired rockets at Turkish tanks during clashes near the border area from where IS was pushed out of on Sunday. It said the wounded were evacuated by helicopters. Two Turkey-backed Syrian rebels were also killed and two wounded rebels were also evacuated.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were intense clashes on Tuesday between the Turkish-backed rebels and IS militants east of the town of al-Rai and surrounding villages.