Witness: Turkey scrambles fighter planes to border after Syria airstrike HACIPASA, Turkey -- Turkey scrambled two fighter planes Friday to the border after a Syrian military helicopter bombed the Syrian border town of Azmarin, according to a Reuters witness. Intense fighting has raged between rebels and Syrian government forces this week in Azmarin and neighboring towns, an area strongly opposed to President Bashar Assad's rule. Shells fired onto the town from surrounding hills sent thick plumes of smoke and dust rising into the air during fighting on Thursday. A voice amplified through loudspeakers, audible from the village of Hacipasa in Turkey's Hatay province, called on rebel fighters to surrender, warning of an air assault. Fighting along Turkey's 560-mile border with Syria has repeatedly spilled over into Turkish territory in the past week, with the Turkish army responding in kind to gunfire and mortar shells fired from Syria. Turkey: Syria plane carried Russian-made munitions Turkish Chief of Staff Gen. Necdet Ozel said Wednesday his troops would respond "with greater force" if the shells continued to land on Turkish soil, and parliament last week authorized the deployment of troops beyond Turkey, heightening fears that Syria's civil war will drag in regional powers.