Rocket fire from Syria wounds two in Turkey

KİLİS

AA photo

A rocket fired from Syria on Jan. 23 slammed into the town of Kilis on the Turkish side of the border, wounding two people, reports said, quoting the local governorate.

The rocket hit a street causing an explosion that damaged nearby buildings and wounded an 18-year-old youth and a 14-year-old Syrian refugee girl, the semi-official Anadolu Agency said.

Local governor Süleyman Tapsız said that the rocket had been "fired from Syria" but did not specify who by. The Doğan News Agency described the rocket as Katyusha-type.

The incident comes after one person was killed and one more seriously wounded on Jan. 18 when a rocket fired from a jihadist-controlled area in Syria slammed into a schoolyard in Kilis.

The army had ascertained that the January 18 attack was carried out by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and responded by destroying the jihadist positions.

Kilis, a town of just under 100,000, lies just north of the Syrian border, some 10 kilometers from the Syrian town of Azaz.

Turkish officials have said it is the only town in the country with a majority of Syrians, some of the estimated 2.2 million living in Turkey who have fled the civil war at home.

That area of northern Syria south of Kilis has in the last months been the scene of fierce clashes involving ISIL that has seized swathes of northern Syria.