Turkish soldier killed by shots fired from Syrian side of border

Turkey has yet to publicly confirm the agreement, and the U.S. officials requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to comment publicly. Under the deal, the U.S.-led coalition will be allowed to launch manned and unmanned flights from Incirlik; in the past, only unmanned drone flights were allowed. Turkey had been resistant to the idea amid domestic opposition.

Turkey had reinforced its border at Kilis a day earlier, deploying elite special forces units there, a government official told The Associated Press.

It said that the accord was finalised in telephone talks Wednesday between president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart Barack Obama.

In Istanbul, the PKK’s youth wing claimed responsibility for the murder of a shopkeeper who the militants said belonged to Islamic State, the Hurriyet newspaper said.

An official said fighter jets had been scrambled to the Syrian border.

According to sources on the ground, a pickup truck carrying 10 heavily armed Daesh members opened fire on Turkish troops stationed at a mountain border outpost.

Turkish media said the targets were the Syrian village of Havar, near the border, but officials would not confirm the location. Under the plan now being discussed, U.S. airstrikes would extend from Kobane, a Syrian town on the Turkish border, westward to the town of Azaz, about 20 miles north of Aleppo.

And on Wednesday two police officers were found shot dead in their home in Ceylanpinar in an attack claimed by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in retaliation for the Suruc bombing.

But Thursday’s clashes signalled a further escalation in the fight, one that threatens to draw Turkey, which hosts 1.7 million Syrian refugees and has a 560-mile, porous border with Syria, deeper into the conflict.

Although Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition, it has limited its role out of concern that Washington’s overall strategy for Syria is flawed.

Turkey’s shift on Incirlik came as the country is on higher alert following a series of deadly attacks and unsettling signs of increased IS activity in Turkey.

The army said that one IS militant had also been killed.

Turkish authorities say the suspected suicide bombing was likely the work of the Islamic State, which controls vast territory spanning northern Iraq and areas in eastern and northern Syria.