Turkish shelling kills 55 ISIS men in Syria

Turkish shelling killed 55 ISIS insurgents in northern Syria on Saturday evening, military sources said, in retaliation for weeks of rocket attacks on a Turkish border town.

Artillery fire hit the regions of Suran and Tal El Hisn, north of Aleppo, as well as Baragidah and Kusakcik, taking out three rocket installations and three vehicles in addition to the killings of the militants, the sources said on Sunday.

Earlier on Saturday, US-led coalition airstrikes in Syria killed 48 ISIS militants, according to a report from state-run Anadolu Agency.

The Turkish border town of Kilis, which lies just across the frontier from ISIS-controlled territory of Syria, has been regularly struck by rockets in recent weeks.

Kilis is about 60 kilometres north of Aleppo, Syria’s embattled, biggest city and the biggest strategic prize in a more than five-year-old civil war.

The Turkish military usually responds with artillery barrages into northern Syria, but officials have said it is difficult to hit mobile ISIS targets with howitzers. Turkish officials said they need more help from Western allies in defending the border.

So far, about 20 people have been killed and almost 70 wounded in the rocket fire on Kilis, Anadolu said.

Syrian warplanes attacked Islamist militants near the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, both sides said, as the government tried to push back an insurgent advance in the area.

Dozens of airstrikes hit near the town of Khan Touman, which rebels took from forces loyal to the government and its ally Iran late on Thursday, insurgents and state media reported.

Meanwhile, three Spanish freelance journalists, who were kidnapped in Syria nearly 10 months ago, returned to Spain on Sunday to be reunited with their families.

The trio, all experienced conflict zone reporters, arrived at the Torrejon air base near Madrid on a flight from Turkey, the government said in a statement.

Antonio Pampliega, Jose Manuel Lopez and Angel Sastre were last seen in July 2015 in the north-western city of Aleppo where they had been reporting on fighting.

They were working for various Spanish media outlets around the time of their disappearance. The government announced the release of the three men on Saturday.