Kurdish militia says Turkish army fired at its positions inside Syria

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Kurdish YPG militia said the Turkish army shelled its positions in a village on the outskirts of the Islamic State-held border town of Jarablus in northern Syria and urged Ankara to halt attacks on its forces.

Several tank rounds from across the border hit its positions and the Turkish army was targeting them instead of the "terrorists", a YPG statement said.

"It is an aggression that should be stopped," it said.

The statement also said a YPG vehicle came under heavy fire from the Turkish military in a village east of the devastated border city of Kobani.

Turkey has dramatically escalated its role in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, which has seized much of Syria's north and east, since a suspected IS suicide bomber killed 32 people in a town close to the Syrian border.

But it has also struck Kurdish targets.

Turkish fighter jets and ground forces hit Islamic State militants in Syria and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) camps in Iraq on Saturday, in a campaign Ankara said would help create a "safe zone" across swathes of northern Syria.

The attacks against the PKK will likely deal a blow to the fragile peace process with the Kurds that was started in late 2012.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Dominic Evans)