Turkey digs trenches at border against ISIL

KİLİS - Doğan News Agency

Turkish army teams dig trenches along the Syrian border in the Turkish province of Kilis as part of efforts to protect the border against ISIL threats. DHA photo

Turkish security authorities have begun to dig trenches at the country’s border with Syria as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants fleeing airstrikes took shelter in an energy facility on the Syrian side of the border.

The ISIL militants escaping airstrikes from Syrian regime forces, as well as the United States-led
coalition in Aleppo, ran toward Syria’s border with Turkey, seeing the region as relatively safer in which to deploy.

The militants that ran from the ramped-up attacks in the Bab town of Aleppo have taken sanctuary in a natural gas facility, near the border with the southern Turkish province of Kilis. Using the facility as a military base, the militants have begun to build trenches in the surrounding area against potential attacks, forcing the Turkish army to ramp up security measures in Kilis.

In addition to increasing security measures, teams from a Gaziantep command post of the Turkish army went to Kilis and dug several trenches three meters wide and two to two-and-a-half-meters deep to protect the border.