Four Turkish Soldiers Killed, Nine Wounded in Syrian Shelling - Defence Ministry

The Anadolu news agency reported a day earlier that Turkey was deploying military hardware to the border with Syria as a column of armoured vehicles and tanks reached the Reyhanli district of Hatay Province, bordering Syria’s Idlib.

The Turkish Defence Ministry has said in a statement that four soldiers were killed and nine injured in shelling by Syrian government forces in the Idlib region.

According to the ministry, Turkish forces retaliated for the shelling and destroyed targets in the region.

The statement comes after reports about Turkish military hardware being dispatched to Hatay Province in order to "strengthen military units stationed in border areas".

In late January, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Syrian government forces of violating the Russia-Turkey deal on the demilitarised zone in Idlib. He also threatened to "take all necessary steps, up to using military force", unless the situation in Idlib normalises.

On 26 January, the Syrian Army started an offensive in the west of Aleppo over daily shelling of the city's residential areas by militants. Three days later, the Syrian armed forces announced that they had liberated the strategically important city of Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, which had been under the control of militants since 2012. Located at a junction of the Hama-Aleppo highway, the city used to be a terrorist stronghold and a transit point along supply routes in the south of Idlib Province.

In September 2018, Moscow and Ankara agreed to set up a demilitarised zone along the contact line between the armed opposition and government forces in Idlib. Not all militants have laid down their arms, with the province remaining a stronghold of various terrorist groups.