Syrian troops massed on the Turkish border overnight, witnesses said today, escalating tensions with Ankara as President Bashar al-Assad uses increasing military force against a popular revolt.
Hundreds of terrified refugees crossed into Turkey today to escape an army assault on the border regions, witnesses said.
Witnesses said the refugees streamed into Turkey from the Khirbet al-Joz region in Syria to near Guvecci in Turkey.
Thousands of refugees are camped on the Syrian side of the border having escaped attacks on their villages and towns further south. More than 10,000 have crossed into Turkey over the past two weeks and are now in four official camps.
Protests have grown in northern areas bordering Turkey, following military assaults on towns and villages in the Jisr al-Shughour region of Idlib province to the west of Aleppo that had sent more than 10,000 fleeing to Turkey.
Troops were advancing on a main road leading from Aleppo, the commercial hub, to Turkey, residents said.
On the 100th day of an uprising that has posed the gravest challenge to Dr Assad's rule, soldiers and secret police backed by armoured vehicles set up road blocks yesterday along the main road, a major route for container traffic from Europe to the Middle East.
They arrested tens of people in the Heitan area north of Aleppo, residents said.
"The regime is trying to pre-empt unrest in Aleppo by cutting off logistics with Turkey. A lot of people here use Turkish mobile phone networks to escape Syrian spying on their calls and have family links with Turkey. There are also many old smuggling routes that people could use to flee," one of the residents, a physician, told Reuters by telephone.
Refugees from the northwestern province of Idlib said armoured vehicles and troops were now as close as 500 metres to the Turkish border in the Khirbat al-Joz area.
A Reuters photographer in the Turkish border village of Guvecci saw three uniformed Syrian soldiers with a machine gun positioned on the roof of a house on top of a hill. Syrian armoured personnel carriers were also visible on a road running along the top of the hill, and machine gun fire was heard although it was not clear at whom the troops were firing.
Turkish soldiers at the border were wearing helmets for the first time since being deployed earlier this month, Reuters witnesses said.
Sunni Turkey has become increasingly critical of the Syrian president, after previously backing him in his drive to seek peace with Israel and improve relations with the United States, while Mr Assad opened the Syrian market to Turkish goods.
The United Nations High Commissioner for refugees said that since June 7th, some 500 to 1,500 people had fled daily across Syria's 840km border with Turkey.
A country of 20 million, Syria is largely Sunni, and the protests have been biggest in mostly Sunni rural areas and towns and cities, as opposed to mixed areas.
Reuters