IZMIR, Turkey: NATO is not considering establishing a no-fly zone in northern Syria, something Turkey has been calling for to alleviate security and humanitarian pressures on its southeastern borders, one of the alliances top generals has told Reuters. Turkey is host for Land Command, which is charged with improving the effectiveness and response time of the alliances land forces. Although Turkey has made no formal request to NATO for help in establishing a no-fly zone, it has repeatedly said that willing nations should put one in place to create safe areas in Syria, allowing some of an estimated 1.6 million Syrian refugees to be repatriated. A no-fly zone is a resource intensive undertaking... Thats not something were looking at right now in this context, Lt. Gen. John Nicholson, the new head of LANDCOM, told Reuters in an interview at his headquarters in the Turkish coastal city of Izmir. Meanwhile, Algerias military has killed a militant involved in the abduction and beheading of French tourist Herve Gourdel in September, Justice Minister Tayeb Louh said on Wednesday. The Caliphate Soldiers, a splinter group which has allied itself to Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for Gourdels killing, saying it was in retaliation for Frances intervention in Iraq. It emerges from the investigation on the assassination of French national Herve Gourdel that one of those who committed this murder, ... was killed by the army during an anti-terrorist operation in October, he said.

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NATO not considering Syria no-fly zone