Turkey builds wall in token effort to secure border with Syria

REYHANLI Turkey (Reuters) - Turkey has started building a new wall along a fragment of its southeastern border with Syria as it struggles against smuggling, illegal migration and the threat from al Qaeda fighters among Syria's rebel ranks.

Slabs of concrete have sprung up in recent days, snaking for just over one kilometre over the rolling hills of Hatay province, a finger of land which was part of Syria until the late 1930s, dotted with villages that have thrived on an illicit cross-border trade in everything from fuel to cigarettes.