Syria bombs rebel area near Turkish border: activists

CEYLANPINAR, Turkey (Reuters) - Syrian helicopters and artillery bombarded the Ras al-Ain area near the border with Turkey on Sunday, days after Free Syrian Army rebels captured it during an advance into the northeast, opposition campaigners said.

Helicopters fired rockets at a grain storage area near the village of Tal Halaf and shells hit a border crossing in the northeastern oil-producing province of Hasaka, home to a large part of Syria's Kurdish minority, 600 km (375 miles) from Damascus, the activists told Reuters.

Tank rounds appeared to strike the western part of Ras al-Ain, and black smoke could be seen rising. Some artillery rounds appeared to land just inside the Turkish border.

Most of the inhabitants of the agricultural town, which has been Arabised under the nationalist rule of President Bashar al-Assad's Baath Party from its Kurdish name of Seri Kaneh, fled to Turkey when rebels captured the area on Thursday in a push to seize control of frontier regions from Assad's forces.

A statement by Birth of Freedom, a Syrian Kurdish activists' organization, said clashes were under way between rebels and Assad's forces in the area of Asfar Najjar.

The group said the rebels had committed a "big strategic mistake" by entering Seri Kaneh, where thousands of refugees from other parts of Syria had taken refuge.

Syria's Kurds fear that the mostly Arab rebels will ignore their aspiration to secure some form of autonomy in any post-Assad era.

Ras al-Ain and most of the major towns and cities in Hasaka have seen protests against Assad by Arabs and Kurds, but the Kurdish community has largely stayed away from the armed revolt against his autocratic rule.

(Writing by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom; Additional reporting by Jonathan Burch in Ceylanpinar; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-helicopters-bomb-rebel-area-near-turkey-border-104625436.html

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