Turkey says 3 of its soldiers killed in IS attack
ISTANBUL — Three Turkish soldiers were killed and four were wounded in a missile attack Tuesday by the Islamic State group in northern Syria— the first Turkish casualties caused by the militants in Turkey’s two-week-old incursion into Syria.
The Turkish fatalities came after Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels on Sunday expelled IS from the last strip of territory the militant group controlled along the Syrian-Turkish border, effectively sealing the extremists’ self-styled caliphate off from the outside world.
Turkey launched the incursion into Syria — the so-called Euphrates Shield operation — to back Syrian rebels in their fight to push IS out of the town of Jarablus and to limit the Syrian Kurdish forces’ advance west of the Euphrates River.
In a statement, Turkey’s military said the militants fired rockets at Turkish tanks during clashes near the border area from where IS was pushed out of on Sunday, immediately killing two and wounding five soldiers. It said the wounded were evacuated by helicopters. One of the wounded soldiers died despite efforts to save him, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.