Turkish press reports insisted on Thursday that the deployment tooke place under the pretext of protecting the burial site of founder of the Ottoman Empire Suleiman Shah.

This is while Internet and social networking sites have published undated video footage showing several armored vehicles and military hardware entering Syrian soil without referring to the time and location of the intrusion.

According to the reports, the Turkish forces and military equipment were deployed to an area inside Syria that Turkey claims as its own territory.

The Turkish media outlets further quote Erdogan as saying that the military forces have been deployed in a bid to support a military unit already present at Suleiman Shah’s grave site.

Meanwhile, a Turkish opposition daily, Radical, further reported that the invading Turkish military contingent was attacked and besieged by al-Qaeda-linked insurgent forces of the so-called Islamic State of  Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The report, however, has been denied by a number of other Turkish media outlets.

Press reports in Turkey also indicate that 12 armored vehicles, six tanks and 300 troops, as well as a truckload of foodstuff have reached the area around the grave site of the Ottoman leader without any major hurdles, passing through the Ein al-Arab and the Qareh Qozaq Bridge.

Despite earlier reports in Turkey that ISIL had threatened to destroy the grave site, elements of the terrorist group have not yet come close to the burial place.

Turkey, meanwhile, has warned that any aggression against the grave site will be interpreted as an assault on Turkish soil and will warrant appropriate reaction.

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