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News that hasn鈥檛 hit the headlines 鈥� yet

Turkey may have reason to brace for retaliatory attacks from Al Qaeda-linked fighters in Syria after striking jihadist targets across the border for the first time this week.聽

Turkey fired tank and artillery shells on a convoy of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), destroying a bus and two trucks, in response to small-arms fire on a Turkish border post聽on Tuesday, according to state-run Anadolu news agency.聽Until now, any Turkish military action has been aimed at Syrian government forces in the form of retaliatory strikes聽only when shells or bullets strayed across the porous 511 miles of shared border.

The incident came just days after Turkish authorities issued a warning about bombings in Istanbul, Ankara, and the southern border province of Hatay based on a tip that ISIS planned attacks to disrupt the Syria peace talks that wrap up in Geneva today.聽

Concern about a spillover of Syria鈥檚 three-year-old conflict into Turkey has grown聽as Al Qaeda-linked fighters in Syria 鈥� among the estimated 10,000 foreign jihadists now inside the country 鈥撀爐ake greater control of rebel areas,聽pushing out Islamist brigades considered more moderate,聽as well as聽the Western-backed Free Syrian Army.

The Turkish strike against the ISIS convoy came amid fighting this week at Al Raai, where the Islamist Tawheed brigade is trying to fend off an ISIS attempt to seize the border village, which is north of Al Bab, the rebel staging post northeast of Aleppo ().听

鈥淭here is a change, a shift of Turkish policy now because they discovered they are really in a dangerous place after Al Qaeda took control of the longest border with Turkey,鈥� says a Syrian observer in Antakya, the provincial capital of Hatay, who has studied border events closely since mid-2012. 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 expect that to happen.鈥澛�

On Wednesday, at a security conference in Tel Aviv Israel鈥檚 military intelligence chief of Al Qaeda fighters that showed three Al Qaeda bases inside Turkey itself.聽Turkey has denied that any such bases exist.聽

鈥淪yria is projecting its conflict to the whole region,鈥� said Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, reports Reuters. 鈥淭hose blotches (on the map) in Turkey are no mistake by the graphic artist and it is a short way from there into Europe.鈥�

NATO-ally Turkey聽was one of the earliest backers of the Syrian opposition, and聽has been at the forefront of efforts to unseat President Bashar al-Assad. It denies that it has turned a blind eye to Al Qaeda-linked operatives that are widely reported to have set up networks in Turkey to channel jihadists into Syria. Last month,聽police raided the offices of a Turkish aid agency doing cross-border operations, accusing them of funneling fighters and weapons into Syria.

Yet a Jordanian who helps manage the flow of fighters to Syria through Turkey, 聽as telling The Telegraph: 鈥淓very day there are mujahideen coming here from all different nationalities,鈥� said Abu Abdulrahman.聽

Threat to US homeland

And earlier this month, a Syrian defector from ISIS, told the Telegraph that to Britain, Europe, and the US, and were being trained to make car bombs and suicide vests.

James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, 聽that Syria posed a 鈥減otential threat鈥� to the homeland鈥� because of its 鈥渁ttraction as a growing center of radical extremism.鈥�

While it remains only a potential danger for the US, the聽influence of Al Qaeda-linked fighters makes the border feel increasingly like ground zero.聽

鈥淣ow they are too close to Turkey,鈥� says the Syrian observer in Antakya. 鈥淵ou can easily expect any kind of crossing the border, especially since ISIS considers that Turkey is led by an infidel or secular government, which is really the big issue.鈥� It means [they] can target this area.鈥�