Turkish Parliament to vote on armed action

Turkey's Parliament was to vote Thursday on taking more military action in Syria after Ankara shelled Syria in reprisal for a deadly shelling of a Turkish town. Despite calls by Damascus for restraint, the unicameral Parliament scheduled a vote on a motion that will authorize Ankara to further retaliate against Syria if necessary, Turkey's civilian and military leaders said. The vote was to follow an emergency NATO meeting in Brussels Wednesday night in which the intergovernmental military alliance demanded an immediate halt to Syria's "aggressive acts." The alliance, of which Turkey is a member, called the Syrian regime mortar that landed across the Turkish border, killing five civilians and injuring at least 13 others, "a flagrant breach of international law and a clear and present danger to the security of one of [NATO's] allies. "In the spirit of indivisibility of security and solidarity deriving from the Washington treaty [that established NATO in 1949], the alliance continues to stand by Turkey and demands the immediate cessation of such aggressive acts against an ally, and urges the Syrian regime to put an end to flagrant violations of international law." The shell that set off the outrage struck a building in Akcakale, a town near a checkpoint along Turkey's 550-mile border with Syria, killing a woman, her three children and a relative. Officials said two of the 13 wounded people were in critical condition. "This atrocious attack was immediately responded to adequately by our armed forces in the border region, in accordance with rules of engagement," a statement from the office of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. "Targets were shelled in locations identified by radar." Before the retaliatory strike on Tal Abeed in Syria's north-central Raqqa province, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu consulted U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, as well as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Ankara said. Erdogan's statement said Turkey's reprisal was within the rules of engagement established after the Syrian military shot down a Turkish warplane in June, killing two pilots in international airspace over the Mediterranean Sea. Syria had asserted the plane was flying over its own territory. In Washington, Pentagon spokesman George Little called the Syrian cross-border attack "yet another example of the depraved behavior of the Syrian regime, and why it must go." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was "outraged" by the mortar attack. She reiterated Washington's support for Ankara in a phone call with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davotoglu, pledging the United States would stand by Turkey in any future discussions of the crisis at the United Nations, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said. The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad urged restraint and offered condolences to the victims in Turkey. It also said an investigation was under way. Syrian Information Minister Imran Zoubi was quoted by the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency as telling state TV Syria was defending against a regional threat that could affect Turkey and Syria. "The Syrian-Turkish border is a long one and is being exploited in the smuggling of arms and ammunition and by armed terrorists," it quoted him as saying. The cross-border attacks came the same day Syrian rebel forces targeted security forces in Aleppo with a series of bombings that left at least 43 people dead, witnesses and activists said. SANA Thursday put the dead at 23 and said 122 civilians were injured. More than 200 people were killed across Syria Wednesday, the opposition Local Coordination Committees said, including 67 people in Damascus and its suburbs.