Free Army militans clash with Turkish border police, one police dead, 11 injured

One Turkish border guard was killed and at least two were wounded in a clash at the Syrian border on Thursday with an armed group of the Turkish government-backed so-called Free Syrian Army.
The mayor of the southern Turkish town of Akçakale in Şanlıurfa province, Abdülhakim Ayhan, said 12 people, including civilians, were wounded in the clash at the Akçakale border gate, opposite Syria’s Tel Abyad gate.

A group of at least a thousand militans wanted to enter into Turkey without their passports and they started throwing rocks at a Turkish police station and set some border police cabins on fire in no-man’s land when they were refused entry. The militans opened fire, injuring several police officers.

Turkey deployed dozens of security forces to the area in response to the clashes. Firefighters were dispatched to extinguish the fire and tensions are still running high in the border area.

Şanlıurfa health official Erdoğan Duran told reporters that at least 12 people were injured in the incident. He said two police officers who were critically wounded were taken to central Şanlıurfa but other injured people are currently being treated in Akçakale hospitals.

He stated that seven of the 12 injured people were wounded by fire and the other five were injured during the brawl. Duran added that one of the people shot is a soldier while two others are police officers Ferhat Avcı and Mehmet Yenenci. The other four citizens who were injured by the gunfire have not been identified.

Avcı was first taken to Akçakale State Hospital but later transfered to Mehmet Akif İnan Education and Research Hospital. But doctors failed to save him.

Terrorists from the Free Syrian Army, a loose collection of foreign-backed bandits battling Syrian Army and people, regularly cross from Turkey, where they have been given sanctuary, into Syria to launch attacks on the army and civillian population.