ISIS- SYRIA-THREAD

[Anthea]

Mail Online

US strikes to avert another 9/11: Jihadis blitzed in Syria were about to launch attack on passenger planes
By Josh Gardner and John Hall

Fanatics' de facto capital Raqqa hit by wave after wave of missiles and bombs during the first U.S. airstrikes in Syria
Group of fighter jets from the Royal Bahrain Air Force also took part in coordinated attacks on Islamic State targets
20 militants reported dead already, with images released by U.S. military showing huge damage to ISIS-held locations
Saudi Arabia, UAE and Jordan also 'participated' in the strikes - though their exact involvement is not yet known
Strikes saw first combat for $139 million F-22 fighter jets - with Tomahawk missiles also launched from Naval vessels
U.S. also carried out separate strikes on Al Qaeda group Khorasan - who were planning 'imminent attack' on the West
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was warned in advance about strikes, but is not thought to have had any input

The U.S. and Arab strikes on militant targets in Syria overnight were 'only the beginning' of a 'credible and sustainable, persistent' coalition effort to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS militants and other extremist groups, the American military has said.

The airstrikes - which employed U.S. Tomahawk missiles, B1 bombers, F16, F18 and F22 strike fighters and drones - was backed by support from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and the UAE - a coalition of nations that has agreed to assist with the destruction of ISIS.

There was also a separate U.S. attack on a different band of Islamist militants in Syria - the mysterious Al Qaeda-affiliated Khorasan Group, who are said to have been planning an 'imminent attack' on a Western target.

'I can tell you that last night's strikes were only the beginning,' Rear Admiral John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters. He said the strikes had been 'very successful' and would continue, without going into further detail on future operational plans.

Another military spokesman, Lieutenant General William Mayville Jr., said that Arab nations - including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates - took part in the second and third waves of attacks. He said the Arab countries' actions ranged from combat air patrols to strikes on targets.

Earlier U.S. President Barack Obama said the participation of the five Arab nations 'makes it clear to the world this is not America's fight alone.'





Up to 120 IS fighters were said to have been killed in the attacks, which prompted fears for the safety of Western hostages taken by the Islamist extremists, including British taxi driver Alan Henning and photographer John Cantlie.

The Pentagon said the Khorasan cell of Al Qaeda veterans were nearing ‘the execution phase’ of an attack in Europe or the US.

While IS has focused on seizing territory in Iraq and Syria for an Islamic ‘caliphate’, the little-known Khorasan cell has specialised in making sophisticated bombs for attacks on the West.

Its latest plot focused on international airports and passenger planes. Intelligence suggested extremists were already in place in Europe and America, heightening fears they were ready to strike.

The US launched eight attacks against Khorasan targets west of Aleppo, along with the 14 strikes on IS helped by its five Arab allies.

The air campaign – described as ‘shock without the awe’ by one US official – involved fighter jets from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Jordan. Qatar was also named among the allies as it hosts a US Central Command forward base.

The attacks began with the launching of 47 Tomahawk cruise missiles from two US guided missile destroyers, USS Arleigh Burke and USS Philippine Sea, operating from international waters in the Red Sea and the northern Gulf.

Fighter jets including America’s £87million F-22 stealth Raptor then continued the assault. It marked the first time the US has used the F-22 in combat.

The jets, backed by armed drones, hit targets in and around the IS stronghold of Raqqa, where the Western hostages were thought to have been held. The air strikes were anticipated and residents said IS began evacuating its headquarters in the city three days ago.

Pentagon officials said it was too early to say how many fighters were killed or which IS facilities had been destroyed but described the strikes as ‘very successful’. Satellite images showed heavily fortified buildings reduced to rubble by so-called ‘smart’ bombs and guided missiles.

Hospitals reported receiving the bodies of 48 IS fighters killed by air strikes near Abu Kamal, a town on the Syria-Iraq border.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists on the ground, said at least 70 militants were killed in northern and eastern Syria, with another 50 Al Qaeda-linked fighters killed near Aleppo. Eight civilians, including three children, were reported to have died.

A British man who travelled to Syria to fight with rebels against the Assad regime was among those killed in the strikes, it was claimed.

Aid worker Tauqir Sharif, from Chingford, Essex, told Channel 4 News: ‘He was nothing to do with IS – he was defending the Syrian people, fighting against Assad.’

The US Defence Department said the strikes were the beginning of a ‘credible and sustainable, persistent’ campaign to defeat IS, and said more attacks were planned.

Targets included training compounds, command and control facilities, communication centres and munitions depots.

Syria’s envoy to the UN was informed ahead of the air campaign, but officials denied the strikes were coordinated with the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. A State Department spokesman said: ‘We warned Syria not to engage US aircraft. We did not request the regime’s permission.’

The Khorasan cell comprises around 50 veteran Al Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, led by one of Osama Bin Laden’s former lieutenants Muhsin Al Fadhli.

The group has developed next-generation undetectable bombs which can be hidden in clothing or electronic devices, or even implanted in the human body.

Airport security measures in the past year, including greater checks on phones, laptops and tablets, were introduced because of the threat of the new explosives.

Like IS, Khorasan appeared to have established a safe haven in Syria, where it tried to recruit Western IS fighters who would be able to travel and conduct operations in Europe and the US.

Rolling out the Raptor: According to reports, the $139million F-22 stealth fighter jet saw combat for the first time ever during the strikes over Raqqa. Two of the jets are pictured here, over Guam

Link to Article Pics and Videos:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... s-way.html

[Anthea]

Reuters

Islamist fighters advance in Syria despite U.S. strikes
By Kinda Makieh and Jonny Hogg

U.S. planes pounded Islamic State positions in Syria for a second day on Wednesday, but the strikes did not halt the fighters' advance in a Kurdish area where fleeing refugees told of villages burnt and captives beheaded.

U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking at the United Nations, asked the world to join together to fight the militants and vowed to keep up military pressure against them.

"The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force, so the United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death," Obama said in 40-minute speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

British Prime Minister David Cameron recalled Parliament to vote on Friday on whether to join the air strikes. He said in an address at the U.N. that a comprehensive strategy was needed to combat Islamic State.

"Our strategy must work in tandem with Arab states, always in support of local people, in line with our legal obligations and as part of a plan that involves our aid, our diplomacy and, yes, our military," Cameron said at the U.N.

"We need to act and we need to act now," he said.

Syrian Kurds said Islamic State had responded to U.S. attacks by intensifying its assault near the Turkish border in northern Syria, where 140,000 civilians have fled in recent days in the fastest exodus of the three-year civil war.

Washington and its Arab allies killed scores of Islamic State fighters in the opening 24 hours of air strikes, the first direct U.S. foray into Syria two weeks after Obama pledged to hit the group on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border.

However, the intensifying advance on the northern town of Kobani showed the difficulty Washington faces in defeating Islamist fighters in Syria, where it lacks strong military allies on the ground.

"Those air strikes are not important. We need soldiers on the ground," said Hamed, a refugee who fled into Turkey from the Islamic State advance.

Mazlum Bergaden, a teacher from Kobani who crossed the border on Wednesday with his family, said two of his brothers had been taken captive by Islamic State fighters.

"The situation is very bad. After they kill people, they are burning the villages.... When they capture any village, they behead one person to make everyone else afraid," he said. "They are trying to eradicate our culture, purge our nation."

Fighting between Islamic State militants and Kurds could be seen from across the border in Turkey, where the sounds of sporadic artillery and gunfire echoed around the hills.

FRENCH HOSTAGE KILLED

Islamist militants in Algeria boasted in a video they had beheaded a French hostage captured on Sunday to punish Paris for joining air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq. French President Francois Hollande confirmed the execution.

"My determination is total and this aggression only strengthens it," Hollande said. "The military air strikes will continue as long as necessary."

The United States said it was still assessing whether Mohsin al-Fadhli, a senior figure in the al Qaeda-linked group Khorasan, had been killed in a U.S. strike in Syria.

A U.S. official earlier said Fadhli, an associate of al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, was thought to have been killed in the first day of strikes on Syria. The Pentagon said any confirmation could take time.

Washington describes Khorasan as a separate group from Islamic State, made up of al Qaeda veterans planning attacks on the West from a base in Syria.

As Obama tried in meetings in New York to widen his coalition, Belgium said it was likely to contribute warplanes in the coming days, and the Netherlands said it would deploy six F-16s to support U.S.-led strikes.

The initial days of U.S. strikes suggest one aim is to hamper Islamic State's ability to operate across the Iraqi-Syrian frontier. On Wednesday U.S.-led forces hit at least 13 targets in and around Albu Kamal, one of the main border crossings between Iraq and Syria, after striking 22 targets there on Tuesday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a body which monitors the conflict in Syria.

The U.S. military confirmed it had struck inside Syria northwest of al Qaim, the Iraqi town at the Albu Kamal border crossing. It also struck inside Iraq west of Baghdad and near the Iraqi Kurdish capital Arbil on Wednesday.

An Islamist fighter in the Albu Kamal area reached by phone said there had been at least nine strikes on Wednesday by "crusader forces". Targets included an industrial area.

U.S. officials said air strikes under way in Syria late on Wednesday targeted oil infrastructure controlled by Islamic State, a move that appeared aimed at the militants' cash flow.

Perched on the main Euphrates valley highway, Albu Kamal controls the route from Islamic State's de facto capital Raqqa in Syria to the front lines in western Iraq and down the Euphrates to the western and southern outskirts of Baghdad.

Islamic State's ability to move fighters and weapons between Syria and Iraq has provided an important tactical advantage for the group in both countries: fighters sweeping in from Syria helped capture much of northern Iraq in June, and weapons they seized and sent back to Syria helped them in battle there.

France, which has confined its air strikes to Iraq, said it would stay the course despite the killing of hostage Herve Gourdel, 55, a mountain guide captured on vacation in Algeria on Sunday by a group claiming loyalty to Islamic State.

In a video released by the Caliphate Soldiers group entitled "a message of blood to the French government", gunmen paraded Gourdel's severed head after making him kneel, pushing him on his side and holding him down.

DAMASCUS: CAMPAIGN GOES "IN RIGHT DIRECTION"

The campaign has blurred the traditional lines of Middle East alliances, pitting a U.S. coalition comprising countries opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against fighters that form the most powerful opposition to Assad on the ground.

The attacks have so far encountered no objection, and even signs of approval, from Assad's Syrian government. Syrian state TV led its news broadcast with Wednesday's air strikes on the border with Iraq, saying "the USA and its partners" had launched raids against "the terrorist organisation Islamic State."

U.S. officials say they informed both Assad and his main ally Iran in advance of their intention to strike but did not coordinate with them.

Jordan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have joined in the strikes. All are ruled by Sunni Muslims and are staunch opponents of Assad, a member of a Shi'ite-derived sect, and his main regional ally, Shi'ite Iran.

But some of Assad's opponents fear the Syrian leader could exploit the U.S. military campaign to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of Western countries, and that strikes against Islamic State could solidify his grip on power.

ISLAMIC STATE ADVANCES ON KURDS

Even as Islamic State outposts elsewhere have been struck, the fighters have accelerated their campaign to capture Kobani, a Kurdish city on the border with Turkey. Nearly 140,000 Syrian Kurds have fled into Turkey since last week, the fastest exodus of the entire three-year civil war.

An Islamic State source, speaking to Reuters via online messaging, said the group had taken several villages to the west of Kobani. Footage posted on YouTube appeared to show Islamic State fighters using weapons including artillery as they battled Kurdish forces near Kobani. The Islamists were shown raising the group's black flag after tearing down a Kurdish one.

A Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the advance had been rapid three days ago but was slowed by the U.S.-led air strikes.

But Ocalan Iso, deputy leader of Kurdish forces defending Kobani, said more militants and tanks had arrived in the area since the coalition began air strikes on the group.

"Kobani is in danger," he said.

More than 190,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict and millions have fled their homes. Gun battles, bombings, shelling and air strikes regularly kill over 150 people a day.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/ ... ce=twitter

[Anthea]

The Independent

Syria air strikes: US attacks are failing to slow Isis advance, say desperate Kurds in Kobane

American air strikes have done little to dislodge Isis fighters trying to take a major Kurdish city on the Turkish border, Kurdish fighters and commanders have said.

They described the desperate battle to stop the Isis advance on Kobane which shelters a population of at least 200,000.

One described how a friend stopped an Isis assault by dropping a bomb through a tank hatch, killing himself as well. “He just couldn’t take seeing the tanks bombing the village and killing so many people,” said a young fighter of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), “He ran forward, opened the top and held the bomb while it exploded the tank.” RIP

Blood still seeping through his bandage with metal pins securing his crushed lower leg, the injured fighter described how his battalion fought Isis militants who appeared to be high on drugs in the village of Tel Gazal in Kobane province on Tuesday: “We retreated into the village and hid to set an ambush when they attacked. They came with 10 cars with heavy machine guns strapped on top and four tanks.”

YPG fighters managed to destroy two of their cars, the fighter said, before his friend made his fatal attack, causing the Isis fighters to temporarily retreat.

Fighting has intensified on the southern front where the Kurdish YPG, bolstered by hundreds of Turkish Kurdish fighters and Free Syrian Army (FSA) battalions are fighting to stop the onslaught against Kobane. The battle has been focused on one hill overlooking Kobane four miles from the city, which sits directly on the Turkish border.

But the US-led air strikes which began on Monday have been ineffective, according to the chief of defence for Kobane, Ismat Sheikh Hassan, speaking to The Independent by phone from his base inside Kobane. “They struck empty buildings. Isis fighters used to be there but they left, so they haven’t helped us. If anything, they are now fighting harder to push forward before there are more strikes,” he said.

Despite fighting Isis on the Kobane front since July, YPG command was not informed of today’s air strikes aimed at “degrading and destroying” the brutal terror group.

As world leaders met at the United Nations to discuss President Obama’s “global strategy to degrade and ultimately defeat Isil [Isis]”, the Kurds that have fought them for more than a year, were left out of the loop.

“We only heard they had happened on the public radio - behind Isis lines the villages are empty,” said Mr Hassan. “The people who stayed have been killed and everybody else has left.”

In the past week hundreds of villages have emptied and more than 130,000 people have fled across the border to neighbouring Turkey, as Isis has pounded the surrounding villages with shells and heavy artillery. “If we had enough weapons, we wouldn’t be in this situation. We’ve been under siege for a year. We’re not getting any more weapons or ammunition,” said Mr Hassan.

Kobane has been under siege for a year, attacked by both Isis and al-Qa’eda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra.

Turkish armed forces lined the border, with tanks stationed in newly dug trenches, while armoured personnel carriers and special-forces vehicles were visibly on patrol.

Turkey’s land forces commander inspected troops along the Syrian border, as the Turkish government signalled a policy change in actively joining the international coalition led by the US against the jihadist threat in Iraq and Syria.

On the Mursitpinar border crossing, just metres from Kobane’s urban sprawl, men, women and children queued to return home.

“We have nothing in Turkey,” said Amina, a 30-year-old schoolteacher, tears streaking her cheeks. “We had to sleep on the street, the park under the sky. At least we have our homes there. If we are going to die, we will die in our own homes, in our own town.”

As Isis moves closer to the besieged town on all sides, the Kurdish fighters are determined to defend their land until the very end.

“Don’t worry, guys, we won’t leave Kobane,” Mr Hassan said when asked if the YPG would retreat to Turkey. “I’m ready to be executed by Isis but I’m not ready to leave my town. Whether the world helps us or not, we will defend our city. Kobane will be the cemetery of Isis.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 54110.html

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

Islamic State tightens siege of Syria border town Kobane

Islamic State militants are advancing on the Syrian town of Kobane, where they are battling Kurdish fighters.

The clashes are visible from Turkey, where some protesters have stormed a border fence to go to defend the town.

Earlier, the US said it had destroyed four tanks and damaged another during a fourth night of bombardments in Syria.

The UK parliament has voted to conduct air strikes against IS in Iraq, while Belgium and Denmark have also announced they will take part in the operation.


These Kurdish protesters were reportedly trying to get into Syrian to help defend Kobane

IS controls much of north-eastern Syria and earlier this year seized swathes of territory in neighbouring Iraq, including the second city, Mosul.

Some European leaders are wary of bombing Syria, as the government there has not asked for foreign assistance against IS, unlike Iraq.

IS fighters have besieged Kobane, leading some 140,000 people to flee into Turkey over the past week.

However, some on Friday tried to return to help stem the militants' advance - Turkish security forces fired tear gas and water cannon to stop them.

During the fighting for Kobane, at least two shells landed on Turkish territory, witnesses said.

One man watching the battle from the Turkish side of the border asked why the air strikes were not being conducted to defend the town, which has a population of some 400,000.

"Where is America, where is England, why are people not helping?" a villager called Ali told Reuters news agency.

Link to Full Artile and Video:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29382945

[Anthea]

"Where is America, where is England, why are people not helping?" a villager called Ali told Reuters news agency.

Why are not America and others bombing the roads and preventing the Islamic State from reaching Kobane

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Ghosts of Aleppo

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There seems to be few unfortunate civilians left there

no reason for civilians who have escaped to ever want to return

there is almost nothing left of this once wonderful city

mostly fighters killing each other to gain control of a pile of rubble

[Anthea]

The Economist

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The Independent

Desperate Syrian Kurds in Kobani plead for help against Isis fearing threat of 'massacre'

‘What happened on Mount Sinjar will seem like nothing compared to this if Isis gets through’ Kurdish military claim
By Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith

The Syrian city of Kobani is facing its own crisis in the fight against Isis, with Kurdish fighters claiming that the world could see another massacre “if no help arrives”.

Kobani, situated near the Turkish border, is under siege by Isis (also known as Islamic State) and suffering from the effects of militants cutting its water and electricity supplies.

Kobani’s population has reportedly ballooned from 60,000 people to nearly 400,000 through increasing numbers of people fleeing their homes to escape the advancement of the militants across Syria, and tanks, artillery and mortars now surround the city as Isis continues to attempt to push through its defences.

Isis fighters are now just miles away from the city, Rooz Bahjat, a senior Kurdish military officer told Foxnews.com, after renewed attempts to take the city following months of attacks on Kobani.

“What happened on Mount Sinjar will seem like nothing compared to this if Isis gets through,” he said, adding: “This could be a massacre if no help arrives.”

Kurdish fighters have been pleading for the US-led coalition, which it believes is conducting the current air strikes in the area, to coordinate with them, claiming that overnight strikes on Wednesday were not effective and struck abandoned bases.

Reydour Khalil, a spokesman for the fighters, said the Kurdish forces are willing to co-operate with the US and its alliance, and is able to provide positions and information about the militants’ movements.

“We will do everything to resist these advances. We will fight ‘til every last drop of blood, but if help does not arrive soon, disaster is at hand,” Polat Tan, a senior commander with the Kurdish militia told Foxnews.com.

Isis launched a new offensive to try and capture Kobani over a week ago, with militants and Kurdish fighters exchanging artillery and machinegun fire in a cluster of villages about nine miles west of the city.

A Reuters witness said the frontline in this area had not appeared to have moved significantly for days, but militant fighters in the south of the city pushed towards Kobani on Wednesday night. The main Kurdish armed group in northern Syria, the YPG, repelled them.

Syrian and Turkish Kurds have been finding ways to cross over from Turkey to help fight in Kobani, despite Turkish law banning people from going to war in a foreign country.

But the crisis across the border has helped to unite Turkey and its Kurdish population against a common enemy in Isis, despite the two peoples being in conflict for decades.

The influx of around 150,000 Syrian Kurds from Kobani and its surrounding areas in the past week has placed renewed pressure on relations however, and Kurdish leaders have warned that the discord could kill a peace process that is attempting to end the conflict that spanned three decades and shed the blood of thousands over the question of Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.

Ahmet, a 30-year-old man, who declined to give his surname, said he was travelling from Turkey to join the fight across the border.

“We came here to die,” he said, adding that he wanted peace in Turkey, but that if Kobani fell, the peace process would be dead and violence could soon break out again in Turkey.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 57374.html

GOD help those who stayed in Kobani

[Anthea]

BAS News

Islamic State Militants Close to Kobani Outskirts

Kurdish activists in Syrian Kurdistan have said that Islamic State (IS) militants are closing on the Kurdish city of Kobani in the north of Syria. On Saturday, anti-IS alliance military planes shelled IS bases in the Sheran area.

“Just moments ago, the international anti-IS alliance shelled Sheran village and areas around it,” says a source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The source also claimed that bombing missions took place on Friday night, targeting other IS positions around Kobani.

On Saturday the Head of the Kurdish National Council (KNC) in Kobani, Muslim Mohammed, exclusively revealed to BasNews, “I can currently see military jets in the sky above Kobani. The city is surrounded and being attacked from seven sides. IS insurgents are only four to six kilometers away from some sides of the city.”

“Kobani is at risk and about to be defeated because IS militants are so close and they have a huge amount of weapons with them,” said Mohammed.

Commenting on the participation of other fighters with People’s Protections Unit (YPG) to fight against IS insurgents, Mohammed claimed, “From the beginning of the IS attacks on Kobani, we asked our supporters and friends to take arms and fight, but the YPG won’t let any other forces fight.”

“No forces can enter Kobani since it is surrounded by IS militants. We have a large number of members and supporters in Kobani that can fight and they have already asked to fight, but the YPG is preventing them from doing so. The YPG says whoever wants to fight IS insurgents has to join the YPG and fight under the slogan and flag of YPG, nothing else is accepted,” said Mohammed.

Mohammed went on to deny that the KNC had fled Kobani and claimed that as recently as yesterday, members of the PYG had thrown stones at the KNC central office.

Another member of the KNC in Syria, Muslim Seydo, warned about defeat in Kobani and said, “The affair in Kobani is extremely bad. On the eastern of the city, IS militants are four kilometers away and between four to seven kilometers south of the city.”

“On Friday night, US jets shelled IS militants’ bases in Marj Smael and an eyewitness told me that many IS insurgents were killed,” said Seydo.

“Most of the villages around Kobani are in the hands of IS insurgents. They have got very close to the city. We have tried hard to participate in the fight and bring our Peshmerga to defend Kobani, but the YPG and Democratic Union Party (PYD) have hindered us,” added Seydo.

“The YPG and PYD insist that we join their party and units and fight under their slogans and flag in order to be accepted to fight against the IS insurgents,” Seydo said.

He said that this is a huge threat to Kobani. And while IS militants have a large cache of heavy weapons, YPG fighters have only light weapons.

http://basnews.com/en/News/Details/IS-M ... rts-/35593

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BBC News Middle East

US-led air strikes hit IS on Syria's border with Turkey

US-led coalition air strikes have hit Islamic State (IS) targets near the besieged Syrian town of Kobane on the border with Turkey, the Pentagon says.

An IS building and two "armed vehicles" were destroyed at the Kobane border crossing, US Central Command announced.

Other strikes hit IS targets elsewhere in Syria and in northern Iraq.

Kurdish fighters have been defending Kobane against IS since some 140,000 civilians fled the town and surrounding area for Turkey.

IS shelled Kobane on Saturday and several people were killed, the BBC's Paul Wood reports from the scene.

The coalition air strikes did not appear to prevent skirmishes during the night between IS and the Kurdish defenders, our correspondent says.

In the latest coalition action, Saudi, Jordanian and UAE forces joined the US in launching fighter and drone strikes. According to the Pentagon

An IS vehicle was destroyed south of Hassakeh, Syria, along with several buildings used by IS fighters

An IS command and control centre near Manbej, Syria, was damaged

An IS airfield, garrison and training camp near Raqqa, the militants' capital in Syria, were damaged

Four IS armed vehicles and a position were destroyed south-west of Irbil, Iraq

All the aircraft involved returned safely, the US military said.

Turkish troops have been trying to prevent Turkish and Syrian Kurds crossing the border to help defend Kobane, Paul Wood reports.

Several thousand Kurdish refugees are stuck at the railway line which marks the border with Turkey along with their sheep and cattle.

The problem is that, as refugees, they cannot take their animals, their livelihoods, with them but they believe they will be killed if they turn back.

Coalition growing

On Friday the UK became the latest nation to join the US-led coalition against IS, which controls large swathes of Syria and Iraq after rapid advances in the summer.

MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour of air strikes in Iraq, but not in Syria.

Two of six RAF Tornados based in Cyprus have carried out their first combat mission over Iraq since the British Parliament authorised air strikes targeting IS.

They had flown out loaded with laser-guided bombs and missiles, and were followed by an RAF refuelling tanker.

The UK also has a Rivet Joint spy plane in the region.

UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said "intensified surveillance" would identify "convoys" of IS fighters.

Speaking to BBC's Newsnight, he warned the campaign would be "long and drawn out".

French fighter jets are already taking part in strikes in Iraq with Belgium and the Netherlands each pledging six F-16s planes and Denmark deploying seven.

About 40 countries, including several from the Middle East, have joined the US-led coalition against IS.

European countries have so far only agreed to strike targets in Iraq where the government has asked for help.

At the scene: Paul Wood, Kobane

The sound of warplanes circling overhead is nearly constant. And in the early hours of the morning people heard what they said were multiple air strikes against Islamic State positions.

Not before time, say the Kurdish forces defending this place. They are in the fight of their lives, with the jihadis now just a 10-minute drive from the town, and threatening to push further.

At the last Kurdish position outside Kobane last night bullets whined overhead and shells fell either side of the main road to the town.

The Kurds are grateful for the air strikes, but the battle for Kobane is far from over.

Link to Article, Pictures and Videos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29390781

[Anthea]

Reuters

Defying air strikes, Islamic State shells Syrian Kurdish town
By Mariam Karouny and Jonny Hogg

New U.S.-led air strikes against Islamic State fighters failed to stop them from pressing their assault on a strategic Syrian town near the Turkish border on Saturday, hitting it with shell fire for the first time.

The U.S. Central Command said the air strikes destroyed an IS building and two armed vehicles near the border town of Kobani, which the insurgents have been besieging for the past 10 days.

It said an airfield, garrison and training camp near the IS stronghold of Raqqa were also among the targets damaged in seven air strikes conducted by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, using fighter planes and remotely piloted aircraft.

Three air strikes in Iraq destroyed four IS armed vehicles and a "fighting position" southwest of Arbil, Centcom said.

The United States has been carrying out strikes in Iraq since Aug. 8 and in Syria, with the help of Arab allies, since Tuesday, in a campaign it says is aimed at "degrading and destroying" the Islamist militants who have captured swathes of both countries.

A day after the UK Parliament voted to allow British warplanes to attack IS in Iraq, two British fighter jets flew a mission over the country, the Ministry of Defence said, adding they had gathered intelligence but did not carry out air strikes.

IS, which swept across northern Iraq in June, has proclaimed an Islamic "caliphate", beheaded Western hostages and ordered Shi'ites and non-Muslims to convert or die. Its rise has prompted President Barack Obama to order U.S. forces back into Iraq, which they left in 2011, and to go into action over Syria for the first time.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group that supports opposition forces fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said Saturday's air strikes set off more than 30 explosions in Raqqa.

Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the British-based Observatory, said 23 Islamic State fighters were killed. He said the heaviest casualties were inflicted in attacks on an airport.

But the monitoring group said IS was still able to shell eastern parts of Kobani, wounding several people. It said that IS fighters had killed 40 Kurdish militia in the past five days in their battle for Kobani, including some who were killed by a suicide bomber who drove into the town's outskirts in a vehicle disguised to look as though it was carrying humanitarian aid.

The insurgents' offensive against the Kurdish town, also known as Ayn al-Arab, has prompted around 150,000 refugees to pour across the border into Turkey since last week.

ERDOGAN SHIFT

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan signalled a shift in Ankara's position by saying for the first time that Turkish troops could be used to help set up a secure zone in Syria, if there was international agreement to establish one as a haven for those fleeing the fighting. [ID:nL6N0RS063]

Turkey has so far declined to take a frontline role in the U.S.-led coalition against IS, but Erdogan told the Hurriyet newspaper: "The logic that assumes Turkey would not take a position militarily is wrong."

He said negotiations were under way to determine how and by which countries the air strikes and a potential ground operation would be undertaken, and that Turkey was ready to take part.

"You can't finish off such a terrorist organisation only with air strikes. Ground forces are complementary ... You have to look at it as a whole. Obviously I'm not a soldier but the air (operations) are logistical. If there's no ground force, it would not be permanent," he said.

Turkish officials near the Syrian border said IS fighters battling Kurdish forces for Kobani sent four mortar shells into Turkish territory, wounding two people.

One of the shells hit a minibus near Tavsanli, a Turkish village within sight of Kobani. A large hole was visible in the rear of the vehicle.

"Two people were injured in the face when the minibus was hit. If they'd been 3 metres (10 feet) closer to the car, many people would have died," said Abuzer Kelepce, a provincial official from the pro-Kurdish party HDP.

Heavy weapons fire was audible, and authorities blocked off the road towards the border.

"The situation has intensified since the morning. We are not letting anyone through right now because it is not secure at all. There is constant fighting, you can hear it," the official said.

Kobani sits on a road linking north and northwestern Syria. IS militants were repulsed by local forces, backed by Kurdish fighters from Turkey, when they tried to take it in July, and that failure has so far prevented them from consolidating their gains in the region.

COALITION WIDENS

Syria's government, which in the past accused its opponents of being Western agents trying to topple Assad, has not objected to the U.S.-led air strikes, saying it was informed by Washington before they began.

It too has carried out air strikes across the country, including in the east, and its ground forces have recaptured the town of Adra, northeast of Damascus, tightening Assad's grip on territory around the capital.

But Russia has questioned the legality of U.S. and Arab state air strikes in Syria because they were carried out without the approval of Damascus, Moscow's ally.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Friday that this week's strikes in Syria had disrupted Islamic State's command, control and logistics capabilities. But he said a Western-backed opposition force of 12,000 to 15,000 would be needed to retake areas of eastern Syria controlled by the militants.

(Reporting by Mariam Karouny; Additional reporting by Michele Kambas; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Jason Neely)

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews ... dChannel=0

[Anthea]

Channel News Asia

US hits militants in Syria, Al-Qaeda threatens coalition

The US-led coalition widened its air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria on Saturday (Sep 27) as British warplanes flew their first anti-IS combat missions over neighbouring Iraq.

DAMASCUS: The US-led coalition widened its air strikes against the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria on Saturday (Sep 27) as British warplanes flew their first anti-IS combat missions over neighbouring Iraq.

Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda's Syrian franchise, said the strikes on Syria were "war against Islam", and threatened to attack the worldwide interests of participating nations.

Seven targets were hit in Syria, the Pentagon said, including at the border crossing into Turkey of the besieged Kurdish town of Ain al-Arab, also known as Kobane.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said IS rockets hit the town for the first time since the militant assault began on September 16, wounding 12 people. The IS campaign there has already driven 160,000 refugees into Turkey.

Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 jets took off from Britain's RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus for Iraq but returned to base without dropping their laser-guided bombs.

"On this occasion no targets were identified as requiring immediate air attack by our aircraft," said a defence ministry spokesman in London.

Belgium and Denmark have also approved plans to join France and the Netherlands in targeting IS in Iraq, allowing Washington to focus on the more complex operation against its Syria base. Washington had warned that the militants could not be defeated in Syria by air power alone, saying that up to 15,000 "moderate" rebels would need to be trained.

In a video posted online, an Al-Nusra Front spokesman threatened the coalition nations.

"These states have committed a horrible act that is going to put them on the list of jihadist targets throughout the world," Abu Firas al-Suri said. "This is not a war against Al-Nusra, but a war against Islam."

Saturday was the second time US-led air strikes had been reported around Ain al-Arab since the IS advance began.

TURKEY MULLS ‘NECESSARY STEPS’

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey could take a military role in the coalition, the Hurriyet daily reported. He said the government would go to parliament with a motion on October 2, after which "all the necessary steps" would be taken. Ankara had insisted its hands were tied over dozens of Turkish hostages abducted by IS in Iraq, but they are now free.

Hundreds of Syrian Kurdish refugees, clutching whatever they could grab, crossed the border Saturday to safety.

Turkey's NTV television reported that shells fired from Syria hit Suruc, about 10 kilometres (six miles) north of the border, wounding two women.

Senior Syrian Kurdish official Newaf Khalil told AFP that air strikes hit the IS-held town of Ali Shar east of Ain al-Arab, destroying several IS tanks.

Saturday's air strikes came a day after hundreds of Kurdish fighters crossed from Turkey to reinforce Ain al-Arab's defenders. Coalition aircraft also pounded the Euphrates valley city of Raqa, which the militants have made the headquarters of the "caliphate" they declared in June over swathes of Iraq and Syria.

"At least 31 explosions were heard in Raqa city and its surroundings," said the Britain-based Observatory.

Washington has been keen not to let Syrian President Bashar al-Assad exploit the anti-IS campaign to make gains in the more than three-year-old civil war.

NEAR CONTINUOUS’ COMBAT SORTIES

The US and Arab allies began air strikes against IS in Syria on Tuesday, more than a month after Washington launched its air campaign against the militants in Iraq.

Washington had been reluctant to intervene in Syria, but acted after the militants captured more territory and committed widespread atrocities, including beheading three Western hostages.

A US defence official told AFP Friday the Syrian mission is now similar to Iraq's, with "near continuous" sorties. Washington also plans to train and arm 5,000 Syrian rebels, although top US military officer General Martin Dempsey said 12,000-15,000 men would be required to recapture "lost territory" in Syria. Dempsey also said that defeating IS would take more than air strikes and that "a ground component" was an important aspect of the campaign.

At the UN General Assembly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Washington of declaring its "right to unilateral use of force anywhere to uphold its own interests," in a veiled reference to the Syrian campaign.

European governments have so far ruled out strikes in Syria, although Britain "reserved the right" to intervene there if there was an imminent "humanitarian catastrophe". Washington has instead been supported in its Syria campaign by Arab allies Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Iran's ground forces commander General Ahmad Reza Pourdestana has warned that it too would attack IS in Iraq if it approached the border, state media reported.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/wor ... 85646.html

[Anthea]

The Independent

Isis in Syria: Besieged people of Kobane plead 'don't send us food or aid. Send us weapons'

The Syrian town of Kobane lies a mere 100 yards or so from Turkey, across a railway track that marks the border between the two countries.

The small crossing from Suruc on the Turkish side into Kobane used to be a gateway for trucks transporting goods in and out of Syria. These days, the only passage allowed out is for Syrian Kurds fleeing the advance of Islamic State (Isis) militants.

Employees at the Suruc customs and weigh station now sit idle, their compound a base for the Turkish Red Crescent, which is desperately trying to meet the needs of tens of thousands of refugees from Kobane and the surrounding villages.

On the other side of the border, guerrilla fighters belonging to the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, are holding off an onslaught by Isis militants who have besieged the small town for over a week.

Guarding one of the pedestrian gates into Kobane were two female guerrilla fighters belonging to the YPG, which has been in control of Kobane since 2012.

In stark contrast to the army uniforms worn by the Turkish soldiers on the other side of the border, the guerrillas wear traditional loose Kurdish trousers, topped with flack jackets and AK47s, with colourful embroidered scarves holding back their hair. The main entrance to the town is kept closed and guards cautiously peer through a small window in the heavy metal gate before opening it to cars that need to come through.

Ambulances bringing injured fighters back from the front-lines blare their sirens in warning, and the gate is quickly pulled back to allow them through. A convoy of small trucks taking fighters to the battlefield also signals its arrival with a blaze of horns as it speeds down the main street leading out of the town.

One fighter wearing a camouflage jacket and scarf tied around his head stands in the back of a pick-up truck, his gun already poised and at the ready.

More than 140,000 Kobane residents fled the town last week but many people have started to come back – some driven home by the miserable conditions in Suruc, others wanting to join the fight against Isis.

"I didn't want to leave my home," said Sabah, who fled to Turkey with her four young children. "But my children were frightened and they were crying all the time."

Their situation in Turkey was so bad, she said, that they after five days they decided to come home. "I'd rather be in my home. I'm scared, but I don't have a choice."

Like many of Kobane's residents, she is haunted by the memory of the recent massacres of Yazidi at the hands of Isis militants in the Sinjar region of Iraq. "We don't know what could happen to us."

Turkey has been intermittently preventing people from returning to Syria, worried about members of its own Kurdish guerrilla group, the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, trying to join the YPG in the fight against Isis.

Kobane has been cut off for months; residents survive using small petrol-fuelled generators and the basic supplies they can smuggle in from Turkey.

Shops in the town sit empty and shuttered, with nothing to sell, while dozens of half-built buildings line the main road, their construction halted when the supply of materials was stopped.

On Thursday, the first humanitarian aid reached the town, when 12 trucks were allowed to cross the border into Kobane. Sent by the Barzani Charity Foundation, an NGO based in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the trucks brought rice, beans, baby formula, blankets and other supplies, both to the refugees in Suruc and to Kobane's besieged residents.

"We are the first NGO to enter Kobane," Musa Ahmed, deputy director of the foundation, told the handful of journalists allowed to accompany the convoy. "It is our duty to help Kurds everywhere; we want to serve outside the borders of the Kurdistan Region."

During a walk through the town, residents said that they really needed solders, not aid supplies.

"Don't send us food, we don't need food," one man screamed. "We will eat mud if we have to. Send us weapons, send us Peshmerga," he continued, and then fell on his knees in front of Musa Ahmed and started kissing his shoes. Another man in the crowd watched the scene silently, tears pouring down his face.

Both tears and desperate appeals for weapons are ubiquitous in Kobane. While the IS militants have weapons and armoured vehicles captured from the Iraqi army, the YPG has nothing but AK47s, rockets and a few revamped armoured vehicles. But equally prevalent is the residents' determination to fight.

"This is my uncle's gun," one young girl of about 12 told members of a Kurdish parliamentary delegation who visited Kobane last week. Holding up a rifle, she said: "But I want my own gun. If I had a gun, I could go and fight."

On Thursday, Maher Khalil returned to Kobane after taking his sister to Suruc to get her out of harm's way. "We saw what Isis did to women in Sinjar. They kidnapped them and now they're being sold in the market. But I'm going to defend my land," he said. "Now [the US] has started bombing, we can fight again. I don't care if I lose my life. If I die, I'll die fighting for my homeland."

Yesterday, explosions were heard again in and around the Kobane enclave, with US air strikes reported in the region. Speaking from Kobane, another resident said: "The situation is better now after the bombing, people have more hope. But we need more bombs, more bombs."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 60095.html

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Bloomberg

U.S. Airstrikes Target Islamic State Fighting Kurds in Syria
By Selcan Hacaoglu and Glen Carey

The U.S.-led military coalition struck Islamic State militants in Syria near the border with Turkey, where Kurdish fighters have been struggling to stop the group’s onslaught on a main Kurdish town.

A building and two armed vehicles belonging to the al-Qaeda breakaway group were destroyed near the Syrian town of Kobani, the U.S. Central Command said yesterday. At least three militants were killed, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors developments in the country’s civil war.

“Airstrikes by the international coalition are a positive development, but they just bombed a few places,” said Orhan Sansal, the Kurdish mayor of Suruc, which lies across the border from Kobani in Turkey. “Islamic militants have even come closer to Kobani,” he said by telephone today.

Expanding the coalition’s airstrikes to Kobani may offer reprieve to Kurdish fighters defending the town, also known as Ayn al-Arab. Islamic State’s onslaught on the territory this month forced thousands to flee across the border into Turkey.

Islamists Thrive

The U.S. has been attacking Islamic State targets in Iraq since August. It widened its military offensive against the group into Syria this month with the help of the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and Qatar. The coalition is the biggest U.S.-Arab military venture since the 1991 war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.

Islamist militants are thriving in the Middle East from Iraq to Syria and Libya, taking advantage of a decline in state authority and one of the world’s highest youth-unemployment rates to recruit young fighters.

“Beating this organization isn’t as easy as many may expect,” Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, wrote in an editorial published today in several local newspapers. While the coalition can defeat Islamic State militarily, the fight requires “open, enlightened thought” to counter its ideology, he said.

Airstrikes in Syria also targeted oil refineries in the northern area of Tal Abyad, the observatory said today. The U.S. says Islamic State uses the modular facilities in its oil-smuggling operations.

To contact the reporters on this story: Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara at shacaoglu@bloomberg.net; Glen Carey in Riyadh at gcarey8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net James Herron, Amy Teibel

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-0 ... s-in-syria