Syria, Turkey Trade Fire; Blast Hits Damascus Police - Wall Street Journal [getdailynow.blogspot.com]
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By NOUR MALAS
BEIRUTâ€"Turkey and Syria exchanged artillery fire for a fifth straight day Sunday, raising the prospect that a cross-border incident between the neighboring countries last week is turning into a prolonged confrontation that risks unsettling the broader region.
Turkey's military fired artillery on targets inside Syria, Turkey's state-run news agency said, after a Syrian-fired shell landed in Akcakale, the border town where Syrian artillery killed five Turkish citizens last Wednesday.
That incident, which Damascus has said was an accident, prompted Ankara's first retaliation last week. Turkey has fired artillery shells across the border every day since, in response to Syrian artillery hitting various towns across its border.
Syria's government, despite international condemnation, has held back from apologizing to Turkey while it investigates the source of the fire from its territory, which it says could be from antigovernment fighters who control large parts of the border territory.
There were no immediate reports of casualties in Turkey on Sunday, after a shell landed close to a grain-storage facility several hundred meters from the town center at around 3.30 pm local time, witnesses in Akcakale said. In Syria, at least three rebel fighters were killed in Syrian regime shelling earlier in the day, fighters in the area said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned over the weekend that the continued exchange of fire across the Syrian-Turkish border raises concerns that the conflict could spread to other neighboring countries. Mr. Panetta, in a press conference in Peru on Saturday, said the U.S. is using its diplomatic channels to relay worries about the fighting, the Associated Press reported.
Still, regional diplomats and analysts say the risk of a full-blown confrontation between Syria and Turkey, onetime allies whose leaders were personal friends before Syria's crisis erupted last year, is limited. Analysts say that cross-border incidents are likely to continue, however, as President Bashar al-Assad's forces pursue rebel fighters leading an insurgency against his rule.
"The risks of miscalculation are considerable," analysts Ayham Kamel and Naz Masraff, with the political-risk firm Eurasia Group, wrote in a recent note. "Ankara and Damascus no longer share a direct and open military or political communication channel. During potential clashes, miscommunication is probable and both sides could misinterpret their respective intentions."
President Assad cannot afford to give up control of the border area, a lifeline for rebels, and has delegated military decision-making to local commanders, the analysts said. That raises the risk of knee-jerk responses and potential mistakes that could escalate.
Turkey's leadership has made clear it has no intention to go to war with Syria but that it would respond to violations of its sovereignty. Prime Minister Erdogan has raised doubts over whether the frequent cross-border fire from Syria is an accident but has refrained from further comment on the Syrian government's intentions.
Turkey has taken a prime regional role in supporting the Syrian rebel movement. Over the weekend, it appeared to shift its focus back to a negotiated transition rather than armed confrontation as a way out of Syria's crisis. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Saturday in a local television interview that Syria's vice president could replace President Assad in a transitional government and that the opposition would likely accept such a proposal.
His comments appeared to be designed to gauge the Syrian opposition's reaction. Opposition leaders have routinely rejected transition plans that put regime figures in charge. And the spread of fighting has seen rebel commanders intent on overthrowing President Assad by military force prevail over political opposition leaders calling for a peaceful transition.
Mr. Davutoglu said Syria's opposition "is inclined to accept" Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa, the highest-ranking Sunni Muslim in President Assad's regime. While the regime is largely dominated by Alawites from the president's minority Shiite-linked sect, Syria's majority population, and the bulk of the antigovernment movement, is Sunni.
In Syria's al-Raqqa province, just across the border from Akcakale, rebel fighters said the source of the shelling on Sunday that struck Turkish territory was government tanks in the village of Ain Arous, some 11 kilometers from the border.
The nearby city of Tal Abyad was still being shelled by Syrian army positions in the area, residents said.
Syrian rebels have voiced frustration with what they see as a restrained response from Turkey but rejected accusations that they might be instigating border tensions to push Turkey toward an armed confrontation with Syrian regime forces of the sort that rebels have long called for.
"The Free Syrian Army in Tal Abyad doesn't have tanks or missiles to launch these kind of attacks anyway," said Ayham al-Khalaf, an activist with the local activist media council in al-Raqqa.
â€"Joe Parkinson in Istanbul contributed to this article.Write to Nour Malas at nour.malas@dowjones.com
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