Amman - Syrian troops massed near the Turkish border, witnesses said on Thursday, raising tensions with Ankara as President Bashar al-Assad increases the use of military force against a popular revolt.
Turkey said the two countries' foreign ministers had consulted by telephone, and Syria's ambassador to Ankara was later summoned to the foreign ministry, demonstrating further how disturbed Turkey is over events in its southeast neighbour.
Witnesses said hundreds of terrified refugees crossed into Turkey to escape an army assault. Syrian troops stormed the village of Managh, 15km south of the border and just north of the commercial hub of Aleppo, according to residents.
“I was contacted by relatives from Managh. Armoured personnel carriers are firing their machineguns randomly and people are fleeing the village in all directions,” an Aleppo resident said.
Mainly Sunni Turkey has become increasingly critical of Assad, who belongs to Syria's Alawite minority, an offshoot of Islam, after previously backing him in his drive to seek peace with Israel and improve relations with the United States. Assad also opened the Syrian market to Turkish goods.
Rights groups say more than 1 300 civilians have been killed across Syria since mid-March, but the anti-Assad protests have still grown, especially on Fridays after Muslim prayers.
Syrian authorities blame Islamist militants and armed gangs for killing more than 200 police and security personnel.
A Turkish Red Crescent official told reporters about 600 Syrians had crossed the border on Thursday morning.
Earlier in the day refugees from the northwestern province of Idlib said armoured vehicles and troops were as close as 500m from the Turkish border in the Khirbat al-Joz area.
Abu Saeed, a 50-year-old man, told Reuters he fled on Thursday to Turkey with his two wives and three children after he saw some 50 military vehicles enter Khirbat al-Joz.
“(The vehicles) entered the village with a bulldozer and started demolishing our homes. A 90-year-old man was killed by them. They were army soldiers and police. Then we fled here.”
It is hard to verify accounts of the violence since Syria has expelled many journalists, including Reuters correspondents.
Reuters reporters in Turkey saw half a dozen Syrian soldiers entering a three-storey building on a hill overlooking the border, opposite the Turkish village of Guvecci. A Turkish flag had been hoisted on the previously unoccupied building.
The Syrian troops replaced the flag with a Syrian one. They left shortly before noon. Within an hour four busloads of troops arrived, along with a pickup truck mounted with a machinegun.
Turkey's 2nd Army Commander visited the Guvecci border post to take stock of the new troop deployments.
“They (Syrian troops) have never been this close before,” said Reuters Television journalist Omer Berberoglu. “But they didn't come down to where the refugees were.” - Reuters