ISTANBUL, Turkey – Turkey scrambled jets to the Syrian border on Thursday, after clashes with militants of the Islamic State (ISIS) that killed a Turkish soldier and wounded another, local media reports said.
The official Anadolu Agency said the clashes erupted after the militants fired from inside Syria into Turkey’s southern Kiris province.
The Turkish military said that a soldier had lost his life and another was wounded, while an ISIS fighter was killed and three of the group’s vehicles were destroyed by Turkish artillery.
Local media reports quoted an unidentified Turkish as saying that fighter jets had been scrambled to the border, but he gave no other details.
Turkey has long been known as a springboard for foreign jihadi fighters going to Syria to fight alongside ISIS. But it is now facing a surge in violence blamed on the militant group, including a a suicide bombing Monday that killed 32 people in the town of Suruc in Turkey’s southeast.
Earlier Thursday, media reports said Turkey is planning to spend more than $1.5 billion to secure its long border with Syria, building new fences and ditches and flying surveillance balloons.
On Wednesday US President Barack Obama spoke with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A White House statement said Obama agreed to help Washington’s NATO ally secure its southeastern border.
Turkish officials say they have detained more than 500 ISIS suspects over the past six months, and that this month they arrested 21 people recruiting for the militant group.
The Hurriyet Daily reported Thursday that about half of Turkey’s border security patrol is now deployed along the Syrian frontier. It said that 90 percent of its military drones and about half of the military’s armored vehicles also were currently in use along the border with Syria.
