Syrian troops backed by tanks on Thursday stormed a village along the Turkish border, where thousands fleeing a violent crackdown on dissent have massed, an activist at the scene told AFP.

Syrian security forces surged into the northern village of Khirbet al-Joz in the early morning, the activist told AFP in Nicosia by telephone as witnesses in the Turkish border village of Guvecci said they saw soldiers and tanks approach the frontier.

A Guvecci resident said he saw soldiers crossing a hill on the Syrian side less than a kilometre (half a mile) from the border at around 6:00 am (0300 GMT).

A Turkish flag that was raised a few days earlier by Syrian refugees in gratitude for Ankara's hospitality was replaced by a Syrian flag, an AFP journalist witnessed.

People in Guvecci could hear shots and explosions on Tuesday that seemed to come from the hill where the tanks were seen Thursday.

An AFP correspondent saw Turkish police laying sandbags and mounting precision binoculars on tripods on the outskirts of Guvecci.

Movements were visible from Guvecci at a makeshift camp set up by displaced Syrians a few metres (yards) from the border -- delineated only by a simple line of barbed wire -- but no new arrivals were noted early Thursday.

Thousands of Syrian refugees have set up makeshift camps along the border, hesitant to cross into Turkey for fear of being unable to return home.

They say Turkish authorities have assured them they can cross over if they felt threatened.

Turkey has already welcomed some 10,000 Syrian refugees and is providing humanitarian assistance to the displaced on the Syrian side of the border.

More than 1,300 civilians have been killed and some 10,000 people arrested, according to Syrian human rights groups, in the crackdown that has seen troops dispatched to crush pro-democracy protests across the country.

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