Since early 2016, the Turkish city of Kilis and surrounding areas came under continuous rocket bombardments by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, resulting in retaliatory strikes by the Turkish military on ISIL militants located at the ISIL-occupied areas in North Syria. Since January 2016 and until early May, more than seventy rockets fired from across the border by ISIL had hit this town, killing at least 21 people.