AMMAN: Syrian troops massed near the Turkish border, witnesses said Thursday, raising tensions with Ankara as President Bashar Al-Assad uses increasing military force against a popular revolt. Turkey said the two countries' foreign ministers had consulted on the telephone. Witnesses said hundreds of terrified refugees crossed into Turkey to escape an army assault. Syrian troops stormed the village of Managh, in a rural region just north of the commercial hub of Aleppo, according to residents. “I was contacted by relatives from Managh (15 km south of the border). Armored personnel carriers are firing their machine guns randomly and people are fleeing the village in all directions,” an Aleppo resident said. Turkey has become increasingly critical of Assad after previously backing him in his drive to seek peace with Israel and improve relations with the United States. Assad also opened the Syrian market to Turkish goods. A Turkish Red Crescent official told reporters about 600 Syrians had crossed the border Thursday morning. “They (refugees) are running in panic. They have seen what happened to their villages,” said one refugee, a farmer from the Jisr Al-Shugour area who gave his name as Maan. Reuters reporters saw half-a-dozen Syrian troops mounting a three-story building on a hill overlooking the border, directly opposite the Turkish village of Guvecci. The building had been unoccupied and someone had hoisted a Turkish flag on it. The Syrian troops hauled down the Turkish flag and replaced it with a Syrian one. They stayed through the morning before withdrawing shortly before noon. Within an hour, four busloads of troops arrived with a pick-up truck which had a machine gun mounted on the back. Turkey's 2nd Army Commander visited the border post at Guvecci to take stock of the new troop deployments, a Reuters reporter said. Reuters journalists in Guvecci saw around five Syrian army armored personnel carriers wending their way through the hills on the Syrian side. “They have never been this close before,” said Reuters Television journalist Omer Berberoglu. “But they didn't come down to where the refugees were.” The Turkish Foreign Ministry said the border remained open and refugees continued to arrive. “Foreign Minister (Ahmet) Davutoglu spoke with Syrian Foreign Minister Moallem, and discussed the situation in Syria and the situation regarding refugees coming from Syria to Turkey,” a Foreign Ministry official said.
