ISIS- SYRIA-THREAD

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The 'Buffer-Zone that Turkey wishes to create in Syria.

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US OFFICIALS HELD TALKS WITH SYRIAN KURDISH GROUP: STATE DEPT

Thursday, 16 October, 2014 , 20:52

WASHINGTON, Oct 16, 2014 (AFP) — The United States has held direct talks for the first time with a key Syrian Kurdish group, whose troops have been battling the Islamic State group, the State Department said Thursday.

Previous contacts with the powerful Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) had been handled through intermediaries but a State Department official -- who was not identified -- met with the group within the last week, spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

"We have engaged over the course of just last weekend directly with the PYD," Psaki said.

Asked if the United States was discussing the PYD's urgent appeals for weapons, she said: "I don't think we're at that point."

The meeting with the PYD took place in Paris, a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

US officials did not confirm or deny whether Secretary of State John Kerry presided over the talks. Kerry was in Paris as recently as Monday.

The armed wing of the PYD, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), has been engaged in heavy fighting in recent weeks with the Islamic State group, trying to stave off an assault on the northern Syrian town of Kobane.

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Voice of America

Germany Leaving Options Open for Arming PKK

The U.S. isn’t the only Western country sparing with Ankara over Turkey’s refusal to assist the Kurds fighting off Islamic militants in neighboring Syria. A senior ally of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel says the West shouldn’t rule out arming Turkey’s outlawed Kurdish separatists to help in the fight against jihadists.

Volker Kauder, the leader of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) in the German parliament, left open the possibility of Germany arming the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as part of U.S.-led coalition efforts to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL).

In an interview with Germany’s Spiegel magazine, Kauder, who is often referred to as Merkel’s “right-hand man,” said: “I know the problems that Turkey has with the PKK but to sit back and watch as ISIL takes important border towns and develops increasingly into a threat for global security cannot be the solution.”

Germany has been funneling arms to Kurdish Peshmerga forces in semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan as part of its contribution to the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State militants, who have seized, along with Sunni Muslim allies, a huge swath of Syria and Iraq.

The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States. But before the crisis in Syria, and when Turkey and the PKK looked as though they were on course to conclude a peace deal to end the PKK’s 30-year-long self-rule insurgency in Turkey, some European governments, including Germany, discussed the possibility of removing the PKK from the EU’s list of terrorist organizations, say EU officials.

Kauder says any move to support the PKK, whose activists are fighting alongside Syrian Kurds in the besieged Syrian border town of Kobani, would have to be approved by Turkey.

“I do not rule out supporting other groups. But this would have to be done with Turkey, not against it. That also applies to support for the PKK,” Kauder said. “We should see that the greatest danger is the inhumane ISIS."

Turkish concerns

European diplomats here say Kauder’s caveat is unlikely to appease Turkish officials, already bristling at the West’s disapproval of its hands-off stance on Kobani. The plight of Kobani also has added to tensions between Washington and Ankara, which has declined to play any role so far in the U.S.-led military coalition against ISIL.

Overnight Monday, Turkish warplanes launched airstrikes on PKK fighters in a remote part of southeast Turkey for the first time since 2012 when peace talks started between Turkey’s Kurdish separatists and Ankara.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a news conference that the airstrikes were in response to “very serious harassing fire” by the PKK on a military outpost.

“Naturally it is impossible for us to tolerate this. Hence the Turkish armed forces took the necessary measures,” he said.

Last week, more than 30 people died in Turkey during Kurdish street protests against the government‘s decision to remain on the sidelines over the battle for Kobani.

PKK activists have warned that if Kobani falls to the Islamic State militants - the town's defenders are primarily fighters from a local PKK offshoot known as the YPG - then as far as they are concerned the peace process will be over.

The mere fact that Kauder has raised the possibility of arming the PKK is an expression of German frustration with Ankara’s inaction over Kobani, according to U.S. officials in Turkey, who have also urged the Turkish government to do more to assist Kobani’s Kurdish defenders in their month-long resistance.

No deal

Last weekend, U.S. officials thought they had the go-ahead from Ankara for U.S. and coalition forces to use the NATO air base at Incirlik in southern Turkey for airstrikes against Islamic militants. U.S. warplanes along with fighter jets from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been targeting jihadist positions in and around Kobani, trying to relieve pressure on the town’s Kurdish defenders.

But Turkish officials denied any deal on the use of Incirlik had been reached, saying negotiations are continuing.

PKK activists - along with U.N. officials - have been calling on Ankara to permit Kurdish volunteers from Turkey and elsewhere in Syria to relieve the flagging defenders. The Kurds accuse the Turkish government of seeing them as a greater danger than Islamic militants.

Some movement from Ankara on this front appeared to be in the offering, though, with Prime Minister Davutoğlu telling reporters late Wednesday that Syrian Kurdish fighters who had fled Kobani and were now in Turkey would be free to rejoin the battle.

Making a distinction

Asked if Turkey will open its borders for Kurdish volunteers to move into Kobani, he said, “Syrian Kurds can cross the Turkish border to fight against ISIL in Kobani.”

But he drew the line against Turkish Kurds.

“When it comes to Turkish citizens crossing into Syria, we cannot let them be a part of the fight there, no matter which side they will be fighting for,” Davutoğlu said.

Turkish security officials have been using facial recognition technology on the border to weed out any known PKK activists among refugees or YPG fighters who have fled Kobani, Turkish border sources say. Two wounded PPK members brought to Turkey for medical assistance were identified by the technology, according to Turkish media.

The Turkish government has agreed that Turkish territory can be used for the training of 2,000 moderate Syrian rebels, chosen by the U.S., to fight ISIL.

In meetings Thursday with senior Pentagon officials in Ankara, Turkish officials insisted that YPG forces shouldn’t receive any assistance, according to U.S. government sources who spoke with VOA.

http://www.voanews.com/content/germany- ... 86245.html

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Reuters

U.S. says it conducts 14 air strikes against Islamic State near Kobani

U.S. military fighter and bomber planes carried out 14 air strikes against Islamic State targets near the Syrian border town of Kobani on Wednesday and Thursday, the U.S. military's Central Command said.

The air strikes appear to have slowed the militant group's advances, but "the security situation on the ground in Kobani remains tenuous," it said in a statement on Thursday.

Targets hit included 19 buildings, two command posts, three fighting positions and three sniper positions, it added.

Stepped-up air attacks by U.S.-led coalition in the past few days have stalled the advance of the Sunni militants on Kobani, a mainly Kurdish town on the Turkish border, according to a group monitoring the conflict in Syria.

The Pentagon said on Wednesday the air strikes have killed several hundred Islamic State fighters around Kobani, but it cautioned that the town could still fall to the group, which has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria.

On Thursday, Central Command said the latest attacks were designed to disrupt Islamic State's reinforcement and resupply efforts and to prevent it from "massing combat power on the Kurdish-held portions of Kobani."

(Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Susan Heavey)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/ ... QJ20141016

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Reuters

Islamic State training pilots to fly in three jets
By Sylvia Westall

Oct 17 (Reuters) - Iraqi pilots who have joined Islamic State in Syria are training members of the group to fly in three captured fighter jets, a group monitoring the war said on Friday, saying it was the first time that the militant group had taken to the air.

The group, which has seized land in Syria and Iraq, has been flying the planes over the captured al-Jarrah military airport east of Aleppo, said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Reuters was not immediately able to verify the report.

U.S-led forces are bombing Islamic State bases in Syria and Iraq. The group has regularly used weaponry captured from the Syrian and Iraqi armies and has overrun several military bases but this was the first time it had been able to pilot warplanes.

"They have trainers, Iraqi officers who were pilots before for (former Iraqi president) Saddam Hussein," Abdulrahman said.

"People saw the flights, they went up many times from the airport and they are flying in the skies outside the airport and coming back," he said, citing witnesses in northern Aleppo province near the base, which is 70 km (45 miles) south of Turkey.

It was not clear whether the jets were equipped with weaponry or whether the pilots could fly longer distances in the planes, which witnesses said appeared to be MiG 21 or MiG 23 models captured from the Syrian military.

Pro-Islamic State Twitter accounts had previously posted pictures of captured jets in other parts of Syria, but the aircraft had appeared unusable, according to analysts and diplomats.

The countryside east of Aleppo city is one of the main bases of Islamic State in Syria, where the al Qaeda offshoot controls up to a third of the country's territory.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/ ... UA20141017

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Dr. Mohammad Majed Barri fom Aleppo, Syria

Killed 17 October by regime forces that targeted an ambulance



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Aleppo a VERY dangerous place to be

You might not understand the words but the destruction
caused by both rebel and regime fighters is easy to see

Innocent women and children are still living in Aleppo
see the young children playing in the war-torn streets

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Aleppo Media Centre

Dar Al Shifa Hospital
Al Sha`ar neighborhood.

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RT

ISIS fighters withdraw from Syria's embattled Kobani - RT sources

Islamic State fighters have been driven out of Kobani, the Kurdish town that straddles the Syrian-Turkish border, after weeks of heavy fighting, according to Kurdish sources speaking to RT.

A Kurdish commander said that ISIS retreated overnight – in the east withdrawing by 2 km while in the west by 9 km.

The Kurds are now clearing the city. The Islamists have left behind suicide bombers hiding in the ruins of the various buildings in the c city.

"We can still hear sporadic gunfire and explosions coming from Kobani," RT's Murad Gazdiev reports from the Turkish-Syrian border.

However, a victory announcement from the Kurdish fighters is yet to be made, as not the whole of the city has been secured.

Only a few days ago Kobani had been written off and was predicted to fall to IS fighters, even by the Kurds' closest allies. The Islamic State militants control almost entire border between Syria and Turkey so it was vital for them strategically to take control of the border town .

http://rt.com/news/196828-isis-withdraw-kobani-fight/

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Map of current situation in Syria 16 October 2014



Map of situation in Syria just 6 months ago



I dread to think what is is going to be like in another 6months time

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Islamic State is believed to be sending reinforcements to Kobani from Raqqa

This is unconfirmed but probably true

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