Turkey claims a Syrian airstrike killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded 10 others overnight, raising the ante in its military invasion of the Arab country.  

A military statement on Thursday said the attack occurred at around 3:30 am (0030 GMT) in the course of a Turkish operation in northern Syria.

It is the first time Turkey accuses Syrian government forces of killing its soldiers since Ankara launched its incursion, dubbed Euphrates Shield, into the Syrian territory on Aug. 24.

The military did not provide an exact location for the strike. It said one of the wounded soldiers was said to be in critical condition.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said the airstrike took place near the town of al-Bab, located some 30 kilometers from the Turkish border.

However, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights blamed the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group for the attack.

Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Britain-based group, dismissed reports that it was an airstrike, saying that the soldiers were killed during the Daesh attack in the rural area of al-Bab, near a village called Waqqah on Wednesday.

There was no comment from Damascus but Amaq, a news outlet affiliated to Daesh, reported an attack against Turkish troops in a village in rural al-Bab on Wednesday.

The leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) urged the government to act “with common sense” and not escalate tensions.

“This (issue) could drag Turkey toward a very dangerous process,” Kemal Kilicdaroglu said on Thursday.

Citing national security considerations, Turkish authorities imposed a temporary media ban on the coverage of the attack, barring media outlets from reports that “foster fear, panic and chaos.”

In its invasion of Syria, the Turkish military is supporting militants, including the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA), and Takfiri terrorists who are fighting to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Hundreds of Turkish troops are taking part in the operation, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week was pushing forward with the aim of capturing the Syrian city of al-Bab.

On Thursday, Syrian sources were quoted as saying that Turkey was building a military base in the Syrian town of Akhtarin in the northern Aleppo province.

Damascus has condemned Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria, denouncing it as a “flagrant breach” of its sovereignty.