Turkey, US-led coalition target ISIL in Syria to thwart attack

ANKARA

A joint operation between Turkey and the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State pf Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) killed 14 terrorists in Syria on June 4, the Turkish military has said.

Artillery and air strikes targeted ISIL positions after the Turkis military detected signs of imminent attacks on Turkey, the Turkish Armed Forces said in a statement. 

Among the ISIL targets destroyed were an armored vehicle, a rocket launcher and three buildings, Anadolu Agency reported.

Since mid-January, ISIL militants have been targeting Turkish towns and cities on the Syrian border, especially Kilis, with indiscriminate rocket fire.

ISIL’s rocket attacks have claimed the lives of 21 people in Kilis, including eight Syrians, since then.

Meanwhile, Syria's regime killed dozens of civilians with air strikes in and around Aleppo city on June 3, even as it agreed to allow access for ground convoys to deliver aid to 12 besieged areas, Agence France-Presse reported.

The raids on Aleppo were the most intense in more than a month, with dozens of barrel bombs -- crude, unguided explosive devices -- dropped on rebel-held eastern districts of the city, an AFP correspondent said.

Fourteen people were killed when a bus they were travelling in was hit on the Castello road, a key rebel supply route out of Aleppo, the civil defense said.

At least 43 other civilians were killed in regime strikes on neighborhoods in the city's rebel-held east, said the civil defense, known as the White Helmets.

"There are people under the rubble and we're still looking for the missing," said a volunteer who gave his name as Khaled.

Official news agency SANA said rebel rocket fire killed two children in the regime-controlled west of the city.