Some 130,000 Syrians reach Turkey, fleeing Islamic State

Riot police use teargas to disperse Kurdish demonstrators who were clashing with Turkish security forces as thousands of Syrian refugees continue to arrive at the border in Suruc, Turkey, on Monday, Sept. 22, 2014. Turkey opened its border Saturday to allow in up to 60,000 people who massed on the Turkey-Syria border, fleeing the Islamic militants’ advance on Kobani.
Riot police use teargas to disperse Kurdish demonstrators who were clashing with Turkish security forces as thousands of Syrian refugees continue to arrive at the border in Suruc, Turkey, on Monday, Sept. 22, 2014. Turkey opened its border Saturday to allow in up to 60,000 people who massed on the Turkey-Syria border, fleeing the Islamic militants’ advance on Kobani.

SURUC, Turkey — Some 130,000 Syrian refugees have reached Turkey in the past four days after fleeing the advance of Islamic State militants, Turkey's deputy prime minister said Monday, warning that the number could rise further as the militants press ahead with an onslaught.

Numan Kurtulmus said however, that Turkey was ready to react to "the worst case scenario."

"I hope that we are not faced with a more populous refugee wave, but if we are, we have taken our precautions," Kurtulmus said. "A refugee wave that can be expressed by hundreds of thousands is a possibility."

The refugees have been flooding into Turkey since Thursday, escaping an Islamic State offensive that has pushed the conflict nearly within sight of the Turkish border. The conflict in Syria had already pushed more than a million people over the border in the past 3½ years.

The al-Qaida breakaway group — which says it wants to establish an Islamic state, or caliphate, ruled by a harsh version of Islamic law in territory it captured straddling the Syria-Iraq border — has in recent days advanced into Kurdish regions of Syria that border Turkey, where fleeing refugees on Sunday reported atrocities that included stonings, beheadings and the torching of homes.

Read Tuesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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