Updated at 6:57 a.m. ET: AKCAKALE, Turkey -- Turkish artillery hit targets near Syria's Tel Abyad border town for a second day on Thursday after a mortar bomb fired from the area killed five Turkish civilians.
State-run TRT television reported that a military unit based on the border town of Akcakale resumed strikes at Syrian targets overnight and that shelling continued Thursday morning.
Turkish Foreign Ministry officials were not immediately able to confirm the reports, while Defense Ministry officials refused to comment.
Turkey's government said "aggressive action" against its territory by Syria's military had become a serious threat to its national security and sought parliamentary approval for the deployment of Turkish troops beyond its borders.
"Turkey has no interest in a war with Syria. But Turkey is capable of protecting its borders and will retaliate when necessary," Ibrahim Kalin, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, said on his Twitter account. "Political, diplomatic initiatives will continue."
In the most serious cross-border escalation of the 18-month uprising in Syria, Turkey hit back after what it called "the last straw" when a mortar hit a residential neighborhood in Akcakale on Wednesday. A woman, her three daughters and another woman were killed by the shell.
Esber Ayayadin / Anadolu Agency via EPA
Turkish soldiers and relatives of Gulsen Ozer, who was killed by a mortar bomb from Syria, attend her funeral in Turkey's southeastern border region of Akcakale, Sanliurfa, Turkey, on Thursday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several Syrian soldiers were killed in the Turkish bombardment of a military post near the Syrian town of Tel Abyad, a few miles across the frontier from Akcakale. It did not say how many soldiers died.
"We know that they have suffered losses," a Turkish security source told Reuters, without giving further details.
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