For the first time since July, Turkey scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to the Syrian border following a Syrian military helicopter bombed the border town of Azmarin. The WSJ reports [3] that the two fighters flew along the border shortly after 2pm local time following heavy fighting between rebels and Syrian government forces. Booming explosions and the rattle of machine guns around Azmarin could be heard Friday morning from the small Turkish border town of Hacipasa. One eyewitness said the Syrian attack helicopter retreated when the Turkish jets flew along the border. Turkey's move on Friday to scramble jets close to the fighting inside Syria comes amid a sharp escalation of tensions along the shared 565-mile frontier.
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Via WSJ [3]:
HACIPASA, Turkey—Turkey scrambled two fighter jets to the border with Syria for the first time since July after a Syrian military helicopter bombed the Syrian border town of Azmarin, eyewitnesses said, underlining heightened tensions along the neighbors' long border.
The F-16 fighter jets flew along the border shortly after 2 p.m. local time, following heavy fighting in between rebels and Syrian government forces in Azmarin, a Syrian border town opposed to President Bashar al-Assad's rule.
Booming explosions and the rattle of machine guns around Azmarin could be heard Friday morning from the small Turkish border town of Hacipasa.
...
One eyewitness said the Syrian attack helicopter retreated when the Turkish jets flew along the border.
Turkey's move on Friday to scramble jets close to the fighting inside Syria comes amid a sharp escalation of tensions along the shared 565-mile frontier.
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Friday's move to scramble jets underlines escalated tensions along the border, but it isn't the first time Turkey has dispatched its fighters during the Syrian crisis. In July, after a Turkish F4 Phantom jet was shot down by Syrian forces, Ankara dispatched F16 fighters from Incirlik base in southern Turkey in response to Syrian helicopters flying near the province of Hatay. Two more F16s were scrambled from a base in the eastern city of Batman after Syrian helicopters were spotted close to the Turkish city of Mardin.