Syria admits firing along Turkish border

The Syrian government on Tuesday admitted that its security forces killed 10 people on the Turkish border after what it described as an armed raid organised in Turkey. Turkey complained to the United Nations last week after Syria fired across its border last Monday into a refugee camp in the first incident of its kind since the crisis began. Initial reports said two people were killed in the attack. In a letter to the UN, Turkey said two Syrians and two Turks were injured in the camp. President Bashar al-Assad's government responded by accusing Turkey of conspiring with Syrian rebels to fabricate a humanitarian crisis as a pretext for establishing buffer zones inside Syria. It said Turkey was helping Syrian rebels organise border raids to "terrorise civilians into fleeing to Turkish refugee camps". The letter from Syria's foreign minister Walid al-Muallem claimed Syrian border troops were attacked by armed groups at the Salama crossing last week. In response Syrian armed forces killed nine of those involved. In another attack a day later one person was killed and two injured, Muallem said. A letter from Turkey's UN ambassador Ertugrual Apakan said an increase in military action by the Syrian army had led to 6,000 Syrians fleeing to Turkey in the first week of April alone. He said 21 wounded Syrians fled last Monday, including two who later died. Four people were later injured in cross-border gunfire. Muallem said Turkey was trying to "muddy the waters". He accused it of "sheltering, arming and providing logistical support to armed terrorist elements that enter Syrian territory in order to carry out criminal attacks against government forces and innocent civilians; destroy infrastructure; target public and private property; and force scores of people into Turkey, with a view to fabricating a humanitarian crisis".