Turkish reprisals killed 16 Syrian soldiers in the battleground northwestern province of Idlib on Friday after a bombardment Ankara blamed on Damascus killed 33 Turkish soldiers, a monitor said.
The retaliatory drone and artillery strikes hit Syria army positions in southern and eastern parts of the province which were recaptured by the Government in a nearly three-month-old offensive against the rebel enclave, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Also on Friday in Idlib, four members of a single family, two of them children, were killed in air strikes, the Britain-based monitoring group said.
There was no immediate confirmation from Damascus of the 16 deaths or any comment on the flare-up with Ankara that prompted NATO to call an urgent meeting of its ruling council for later on Friday.
