Turkey has fired artillery into Syria to retaliate after a cross-border rocket from the war-torn country had slammed into a mosque, Turkish media said Monday amid heightened tensions.

The rocket from Syria wounded an elderly Syrian refugee woman in Hatay province on Sunday, where several mortar rounds also hit the ground, without causing harm, the Dogan News Agency reported.

Turkey's premier is bound to tighten and extend his grip on power, emboldened by sweeping local poll wins that came despite damaging graft claims and Internet clampdowns, analysts said Monday.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after delivering a rousing "balcony speech" to thousands of jubilant followers overnight, is now almost certain to run for president this year or seek a fourth term as prime minister, they said.

Syrian army troops recaptured on Monday a key position in coastal Latakia province, a regime bastion, state television said, as rebels press a campaign in the region.

"Syrian army units have full control of Observatory 45 in the north of Latakia province and are continuing to pursue terrorist groups," the state broadcaster said, quoting the military.

Two detainees at an immigration center in Japan died over the weekend, an official said Monday, just months after the death of another man at the same facility.

An Iranian man in his 30s choked on his dinner on Friday, a spokeswoman at the immigration center in Ushiku, northeast of Tokyo, told Agence France Presse, adding that he was taken to hospital but died on Saturday afternoon.

Turkey's Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed victory for his Islamic-rooted party in Sunday's key local elections and warned his foes they will "pay the price" for plotting his downfall.

"Those who attacked Turkey got disappointed," Erdogan told a jubilant crowd of thousands, speaking from the balcony of his party's Ankara headquarters after months of turmoil marked by street clashes, sleaze claims and an Internet clampdown.

Femen activists on Sunday staged a bare-breasted protest against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has come under fire over an Internet crackdown, during crucial local elections.

The two women, who had the words "Ban Erdogan" written across their chests, were quickly covered up and arrested after flashing their breasts in the Istanbul polling station where Erdogan had been due to vote.

Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party took a strong early lead in local elections Sunday, TV channels reported, despite turbulent months marked by mass protests, corruption scandals and Internet blocks.

If the initial trend holds up, it would considerably brighten the outlook for Erdogan, who had gone on a weeks-long campaign marathon ahead of the vote widely seen as a referendum on his 11-year-rule.

Turkey's Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan was to hit the home stretch of a campaign marathon Saturday on the eve of local elections, as police hunted those behind a spate of damaging online leaks.

Erdogan and his Islamic-leaning party, after over a decade in power, face the first electoral test following months of political turmoil, with mass street protests and a corruption scandal spread via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Embroiled in political turmoil, Turkey's leader has declared war on a shadowy enemy, a Muslim cleric he accuses of running a parallel "deep state" from faraway rural Pennsylvania.

Out on the campaign trail ahead of Sunday's local elections, there are few doubts about who Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has in mind when he vows to "liquidate" his foes.

Syria has failed to comply with a U.N. resolution calling for unimpeded humanitarian access to civilians throughout the country, the Human Rights Watch group said on Friday.

By refusing to allow aid to cross opposition-held border crossings, the Syrian government "is undermining aid deliveries to hundreds of thousands of desperate people," the group said.