Turkey's military says a Turkish soldier was killed in an attack in Syria's Idlib province where the Turkish troops are establishing an observation post.

The military says the soldier was killed late Monday by a mortar-and-rocket attack. Five Turkish soldiers and a civilian military contractor were wounded.

Turkey began deploying forces in an observer role to the rebel-held Idlib in northwestern Syria in October as part of a "de-escalation" agreement with Iran and Russia to stabilize the lines of conflict in the war-torn country.

That deployment is separate from a Turkish military offensive that Ankara launched last month to rout U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters from the northern enclave of Afrin.

Syrian government forces are on the offensive in Idlib, where militants shot down a Russian Su-25 over the weekend.