Several shells fired from Syria hit a Turkish border town late Saturday but caused no casualties, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

The shells landed near the Reyhanli town in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border amid clashes between troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebel forces in Syria's Bab al-Hawa border post with Turkey, Anatolia said Sunday.

It was not immediately clear whether Turkish border units struck back at Syria after the incident.

Turkey's military has been retaliating after each shelling from Syria since Syrian fire killed five civilians on October 3.

After a series of such incidents including the fatal shelling, Turkey turned to its NATO allies and made an official request for the deployment of Patriot surface-to-air missiles near its border with Syria.

NATO has yet to formally respond to the request.

Turkey, once an ally of the Damascus regime, has become one of its fiercest critics after the regime's deadly crackdown on popular protests and joined Arab and Western calls for Assad's ouster.

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