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Blast hits health centre near Syria border, several wounded: Turkish official

At least four people were injured in an explosion at a school in southern Turkey on Monday, a local hospital source said. Whereas the town mayor Hasan Kara has urged citizens to stay calm.

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Kilis, a town of just under 100,000, lies just north of the Syrian border, some 10 kilometers (six miles) from the Syrian town of Azaz.

The governor’s office said the school premises were hit by a “rocket” thought to have been fired from Syria.

A government official told Reuters the authorities were investigating the number of casualties and the cause of the blast.

Reports said that the person killed was a school cleaner.

The windows on the ground floor of the building were apparently smashed by the impact of the blast and one auto was severely damaged. The shells reportedly landed in the garden outside the school. “They shouldn’t allow any provocation”, he said.

Cross-border incidents have been frequent as a result of the Syrian conflict.

Turkish tanks and artillery bombarded Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq in the days after last Tuesday’s bombing in Istanbul, killing nearly 200 of its fighters, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said.

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But Ankara past year stepped up its involvement in the US-led coalition against IS, hosting American war planes at its Incirlik air base for deadly raids against the jihadists and conducting air strikes of its own. The Turkish Armed Forces responded to the attack, sources stated.

Le poste-frontière d'Oncupinar avec la Syrie près de Kilis le 22 juillet 2012