Another mortar shell from Syria struck Turkish territory today, prompting a fourth straight day of retaliatory artillery fire, and reviving fears that the crisis in Syria could spiral into a regional conflict.

Turkey has deployed anti-aircraft guns and other weapons alongside its border with Syria, reports say, days after the downing of a Turkish military jet by Syrian forces.

Elite Syrian troops backed by helicopters and tanks have regained control of a town where police and soldiers joined forces with the protesters they were ordered to shoot – a decisive assault from a government prepared for an all-out battle to keep power.

SYRIANS fearful of reprisals poured out of a northern town at the centre of anti-government protests as pressure on President Bashar al-Assad grew at the UN Security Council.