Syria Kills 'Terrorists' Crossing from Turkey, 2 Men Entering Jordan

Syrian troops on Sunday killed two men as they tried to cross the border into neighboring Jordan, a local official said, as Syria’s state news agency said border guards killed a large number of "terrorists" who attempted to cross into Syria from Turkey.

"At least two men were shot dead by the Syrian army early this morning when they tried to cross the border into the kingdom, along with hundreds of Syrians," Zayed Hammad, head of the Ketab and Sunna Society, which provides aid to more than 50,000 Syrian refugees, told Agence France Presse.

"We are trying to identify the nationalities of the two because they are not Syrian. The Syrian army ambushes all those who try to flee to Jordan."

He added that 5,000 Syrians have sought refuge in the kingdom in the past three days.

On Sunday, Jordan opened its first refugee camp in Mafraq near the border with Syria for Syrian refugees. The camp can host up to 120,000 people, government officials said.

Jordan has more than 140,000 Syrians staying across the country, with 36,000 of them registered with the U.N.

Hammad said the first batch of between 500 and 1,000 refugees will be moved to the new camp later Sunday from a military-guarded housing complex in the border town of Ramtha.

The conflict in Syria has killed more than 20,000 people since the uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad erupted in March 2011, a human rights watchdog says.

Meanwhile, Syria’s official news agency SANA said Syrian border guards killed a large number of "terrorists" who attempted to cross into the country from neighboring Turkey on Sunday.

"The border guards managed to kill a large number of terrorists in the Ain Bayda area near Jisr al-Shughour, and the rest fled back into Turkey," SANA quoted an unnamed official as saying.

The incident occurred in Idlib province, the agency said, adding that elsewhere in the same region "several terrorists' cars, fitted with machineguns, have been destroyed, and weapons have been confiscated."

SANA said regime forces had foiled a similar attempt on Saturday, this time from Syria's border with Lebanon.

Lebanon's northern and eastern borders with Syria have seen frequent exchanges of fire in recent weeks, some of them deadly, as well as shelling from Syria into Lebanon.