Turkish jets patrol border as Syria cease-fire largely holds

Turkey was on Feb. 27 closely following a landmark U.N.-backed cease-fire in Syria that came into effect at midnight in the war-torn country.

Turkish Air Force F-16s continuously patrol the Turkish-Syrian border with the cease-fire largely holding amid reports of some minor clashes and attacks.

The number of Turkish jets patrolling the border have been increased to 14, the biggest number in recent months except Nov. 25, 2105. One day after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane for violating its airspace, 18 Turkish F-16s were on patrol along the border.

The General Staff also said three boats and a mobile radar are being used to control the sea line bwteeen Hatay and Syria's Latakia.

A rare calm prevailed across much of Syria on Feb. 27 as the first major cease-fire of the five-year war took hold and an international task force prepared to begin monitoring the landmark truce.

Guns fell silent at midnight in suburbs around the capital and the bomb-scarred northern city of Aleppo, AFP correspondents said, after a day of intense Russian air strikes on rebel bastions.

The nationwide cessation of hostilities, brokered by Washington and Moscow, is seen as a crucial but fragile step towards ending a war that has claimed 270,000 lives and displaced more than half the population.

It faces formidable challenges including the exclusion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate al-Nusra Front which control large parts of the country.

ISIL, meanwhile, attacked the town of Tel Abyad controlled by the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) at the Turkish border as well as the nearby town of Suluk on Feb. 27, a spokesman for the People's Protection Units (YPG) -- the...