Showing posts with label Islamic State. Show all posts
Tuesday 21 October 2014
U.S. involved in seven air strikes on Islamic State targets
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Fighter, bomber and attack aircraft were used in the raids and all returned safely, the Central Command statement said.
The strikes near Kobani, Syria, destroyed Islamic State fighting positions, a building and an Islamic State unit.
In Iraq, a fighting position southeast of the Mosul Dam and one south of the Bayji oil refinery were destroyed while another strike north of Fallujah suppressed an Islamic State attack, the statement said.
Reuters
Sunday 19 October 2014
Fiercest fighting in days hits Syrian border town
Islamic State, which controls much of Syria and Iraq, fired 44 mortars at Kurdish parts of the town on Saturday and some of the shells fell inside nearby Turkey, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It said four more mortars were fired on Sunday.
The month-long battle for Kobani has ebbed and flowed. A week ago, Kurds said the town would soon fall. The United States and its coalition partners then stepped up air strikes on Islamic State, which wants to take Kobani in order to strengthen its position in northern Syria.
The coalition has been bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq since August and extended the campaign to Syria in September after Islamic State, a group that espouses a rigid interpretation of Islam and initially fought Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, made huge territorial gains.
Raids on Islamic State around Kobani have been stepped up, with the fate of the town seen as an important test for U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign against the Islamists.
NATO member Turkey, whose forces are ranged along the border overlooking Kobani, is reluctant to intervene. It insists the allies should also confront Assad to end Syria's civil war, which has killed close to 200,000 people since March 2011.
"We had the most intense clashes in days, perhaps a week, last night. (Islamic State) attacked from three different sides including the municipality building and the market place," said Abdulrahman Gok, a journalist in Kobani.
"Clashes did not stop until the morning. We have had an early morning walk inside the city and have seen lots of damaged cars on the streets and unexploded mortar shells," he said.
CAR BOMBS
The Observatory reported two Islamic State car bombs hit Kurdish positions on Saturday evening, leading to casualties. A cloud of black smoke towered over Kobani on Sunday.
A fighter from one of the female units of the main Syrian Kurdish militia in Kobani, YPG, said Kurdish fighters were able to detonate the car bombs before they reached their targets.
"Last night there were clashes all across Kobani ... this morning the clashes are still ongoing," she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Observatory said 70 Islamic State fighters had been killed in the past two days, according to sources at the hospital in the nearby town of Tel Abyab, where Islamic State bodies are taken. Reuters cannot independently confirm the reports due to security restrictions.
The Observatory said some Syrian Arab fighters from the Revolutionaries of Raqqa Brigade, who are fighting alongside Kurdish fighters, had executed two Islamic State captives.
"One was a child of around 15 years old. They shot them in the head," he said.
Islamic State have also used executions throughout their campaigns in Syria and Iraq, killing hundreds of enemy combatants and civilians who oppose their cause, according to Islamic State videos and statements.
Welat Omer, a doctor caring for the few remaining civilians in Kobani, told Reuters by telephone that he was looking after 15 patients, including children and the elderly.
“We need medicine, including antibiotics and milk for the children, and medicine for the elderly, who have heart conditions, diabetes and high blood pressure,” Omer said.
Hundreds of thousands have fled Islamic State's advance. Turkey hosts about 1.5 million Syrian refugees, including almost 200,000 Syrian Kurds from Kobani.
Ankara has refused to rearm beleaguered Kurdish fighters, who complain they are at huge disadvantage in the face of Islamic State's weaponry, much of it seized from the Iraqi military when the militants took the city of Mosul in June.
Turkey views the YPG with suspicion for its long-standing links with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a 30-year armed campaign for self-rule in Turkey.
President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted in the Turkish media on Sunday as saying Ankara will never arm the YPG through its political wing, the PYD.
"There has been talk of arming the PYD to establish a front here against Islamic State. For us, the PYD is the same as the PKK, it’s a terrorist organization," he was quoted as saying.
This stance has sparked outrage among Turkey's own Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of the population. Riots in several cities earlier this month killed left than 35 people dead.
Thursday 16 October 2014
Ramped up air strikes stall Islamic State advance on Syrian town
(Reuters) - Two days of heavy air strikes by U.S. warplanes have slowed an advance by Islamic State militants against Kurdish forces defending the Syrian border town of Kobani.
Last week Turkish and U.S. officials said Islamic State were on the verge of taking Kobani from its heavily outgunned Kurdish defenders, after seizing strategic points deep inside the town.
The tempo of coalition air strikes has increased dramatically, with U.S. fighter and bomber planes carrying out 14 raids against Islamic State targets near Kobani on Wednesday and Thursday, the U.S. military's Central Command said.
The strikes had seen the militants' advance slow, but "the security situation on the ground in Kobani remains tenuous," the U.S. statement added.
The four-week Islamic State assault has been seen as a test of U.S. President Barack Obama's air strike strategy, and Kurdish leaders say the town cannot survive without arms and ammunition reaching the defenders, something neighbouring Turkey has so far refused to allow.
Islamic State has been keen to take the town to consolidate its position in northern Syria after seizing large amounts of territory in that country and in Iraq. A defeat in Kobani would be a major setback for the Islamists and a boost for Obama.
Heavy and light weapons fire were audible from across the border in Turkey on Thursday afternoon, with one stray mortar hitting Turkish soil close to abandoned tents, a Reuters correspondent said.
Turkish security forces moved civilians and media away from hills overlooking Kobani as the fighting raged.
Six air strikes hit eastern Kobani and there was fierce fighting between Kurdish and Islamist fighters overnight on Wednesday, but neither side made significant gains, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Kurdish fighters later managed to seize a street in Kobani that had been held by militants, the Observatory said.
A journalist in Kobani said air strikes had allowed Kurdish forces to go on the offensive for the first time since Islamic State launched their assault four weeks ago.
"We walked past some (YPG) positions in the east yesterday that were held by IS only two days ago," Abdulrahman Gok told Reuters by telephone.
"Officials here say the air strikes are sufficient but ground action is needed to wipe out IS. YPG is perfectly capable of doing that but more weapons are needed."
Islamic State's Kobani offensive is one of several it has conducted after a series of lightning advances since June, which have sent shockwaves through the region and sparked alarm in western capitals.
U.S. officials have ruled out sending troops to tackle the group, but Kurdish forces have been identified as viable partners for the coalition, and Kurds in Iraq have received western arms shipments to bolster their cause. No weapons or ammunition have reached Kobani however, fighters there say.
Kurdish forces killed at least 20 Islamic State fighters on Wednesday west of Ras al-Ayn, another Syrian city on the border to the east of Kobani, the Observatory reported.
At least two YPG fighters were also killed during the clashes, in which Kurdish fighters seized Kalashnikovs, machine guns and other weaponry, The Observatory said.
SAFE ZONE
Turkey has refused to bow to pressure to aid Kobani, either by ordering in Turkish tanks and troops that line the border, or permitting weapons and ammunition to reach the town.
Ankara is reluctant to be sucked into the morass of the Syrian conflict without clear guarantees from western allies that more will be done to help repatriate 1.6 million people who have fled across the border from Syria.
Officials are also wary of arming Kobani's Kurdish defenders, who have strong links with the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has staged a decades long insurgency against the Turkish government in the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast.
Turkish officials are increasingly frustrated with criticism of their actions towards Kobani, saying they have carried the humanitarian burden from the fighting, which saw 200,000 people cross the border from the Kobani area.
They also say air strikes fail to offer a comprehensive strategy against Islamic State, which has flourished in the power vacuum created by Syria's war. Ankara blames Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for this, and wants him toppled from power, something western allies currently refuse to countenance.
Speaking on Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Kurdish fighters who had fled into Turkey had been invited to return to Kobani to defend it, but had declined.
He also spelled out details for the "secure zones" that Turkey wants to be set up in Syria close to its border, so that refugees can begin to return.
Zones should be created near the city of Aleppo, which has seen some of the fiercest fighting of recent months. Others would be set up near the Turkish border in Idlib province, Hassaka, Jarablous and Kobani, Davutoglu said.
To boost legitimacy, the U.N. should enforce the zones, Davutoglu said, but failing that, the international coalition could provide the air cover needed.
"Turkey could provide all the help necessary if such protection zones are created. But when such protection zones do not exist, to ask Turkey to intervene on its own is to ask Turkey to shoulder this risk on its own."
Turkish officials are optimistic they can convince coalition partners to meet some of their demands, at which point Ankara would play a more active role, although it is unclear how long negotiations might take.
U.S. officials say creating safe zones is not a priority and NATO said last week it was not discussing such a move.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday reiterated Damascus' opposition to "buffer zones" - the phrase used by some Turkish officials - warning they would be a gross violation of international law, the Syrian state agency Sana reported.
"(The Syrian people) won’t allow anyone to interfere in their affairs, and are bent on defending their sovereignty,” the Foreign Ministry statement said.
Monday 13 October 2014
Turkey: No new deal with US on using air base
(AP) — NATO allies Turkey and the United States differed Monday on where they stand on the use of a key air base, with Turkish officials denying reports from the United States that there was a new agreement on its use for operations against Islamic State militants.
The impasse suggests that major differences remain between the two sides. Turkey has said it won't join the fight against the extremists unless the U.S.-led coalition also goes after the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, including establishing a no-fly zone and a buffer zone along the Turkish border.
The United States has been pressing Turkey to play a larger role against the Islamic militants, who have taken control of large swaths of Syria and Iraq, including territory on Turkey's border, and sent refugees fleeing into Turkey.
U.S. officials said again Monday that Turkey would let U.S. and coalition forces use its bases, including Incirlik air base, which is within 100 miles of the Syrian border, for operations against the Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.
However, emerging Monday from a Cabinet meeting, Turkey's deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, said that "apart from the existing cooperation in combatting terrorism, there is no new situation concerning Incirlik air base."
The deputy premier added that Turkey had proposed the use of some of its bases to train and equip moderate opposition forces fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, but said the sides had not yet come to any agreement.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, in comments published Sunday, said Incirlik was already being used for reconnaissance purposes in Iraq and said its use for wider operations would depend on whether Turkey's demands for a no-fly zone and a safe zone in Syria are met.
"There are activities that we are already undertaking jointly from Incirlik, concerning Iraq," Davutoglu told the Milliyet newspaper. "But as a base for a more extensive operation ... we have already made our position clear: There has to be a no-fly zone and a safe haven must be declared."
Arinc said the two countries would hold "deeper" talks in the coming days on Turkey's cooperation in the U.S.-led coalition, including its demands for a no-fly zone and a safe haven in Syria.
On the ground Monday, the battle continued to rage on Turkey's border as Islamic State fighters carried out at least three suicide bombings in the Syrian border town of Kobani, allowing the group to make a small push into the strategic town, activists said.
Islamic State extremists have carved out a vast stretch of territory from northern Syria to the outskirts of Baghdad where they have imposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law. The fighters have massacred hundreds of captured Iraqi and Syrian soldiers, terrorized religious minorities, and beheaded two American journalists and two British aid workers. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled into Turkey from Syria ahead of the militants.
The U.S.-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against militant targets in and around Kobani for more than two weeks, and the town's fate has emerged as a major test of whether the air campaign can roll back the extremists in Syria.
The sound of explosions and occasional gunfire could be heard across the border in Kobani a day after Kurdish fighters managed to slow the advance of the jihadist group. What appeared to be a rocket-propelled grenade struck a minaret in the center of the town, emitting a cloud of white smoke.
Activists said Islamic State militants were carrying out a three-pronged attack from the eastern side of the town and that clashes were reported in the southern part.
The Syrian Kurdish enclave has been the scene of heavy fighting since late last month, with the better-armed Islamic State fighters determined to capture the border post.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an Islamic State suicide bomber detonated a car filled with explosives in the northern part of Kobani near the border with Turkey. It said the car was headed to the border crossing between Kobani and Turkey.
Later Monday, another suicide attacker blew himself up in a vehicle east of Kobani near the security quarter that houses the main police station and other local government offices, according to the Observatory and Kobani-based activist Farhad Shami.
The Observatory later reported a third suicide attack northeast of Kobani, adding that Islamic State fighters were able to capture a cultural center. Coalition warplanes later bombarded the area, the Observatory said.
Shami said the third suicide attack was carried out by an armored vehicle that blew up about 300 yards (meters) from the main border crossing point into Turkey. He also confirmed that Islamic State fighters captured the cultural center southeast of the town.
There was no immediate word on casualties from the explosions.
Shami said coalition aircraft flying over Kobani had struck 10 times Sunday and Monday.
Islamic State forces 180,000 to flee in Iraq
(Reuters) - Fighting in Iraq's western Anbar province has forced up to 180,000 people to flee since the city of Hit fell to Islamic State earlier this month, the United Nations said on Monday.
Islamic State fighters extended that advance by overrunning a military base that the Iraqi army had abandoned 8 km (5 miles) west of Hit earlier on Monday, according to an army officer and members of a government-backed Sunni militia.
Islamic State has been on the offensive in the desert province of Anbar, bordering Syria, in recent weeks, taking the town of Hit on Oct. 2 and nearby Kubaisa on Oct. 4.
That has raised concerns in the West because it is close to Baghdad and demonstrates the group's reach; while operating successfully in Anbar, it is also on the verge of taking the strategic town of Kobani hundreds of miles away in northern Syria on the border with Turkey.
In Baghdad, three bombs exploded in Shi'ite parts of the capital on Monday, killing 30 people, police and medical officials said, continuing a wave of attacks targeting Iraq's majority religious group.
There was no claim of responsibility for the bombings, but Islamic State claimed a string of attacks in Baghdad on Sunday that left 45 dead.
As a result of the fighting and air strikes in Anbar, carried out by the Iraqi government and a U.S.-led military coalition, up to 30,000 families or 180,000 individuals have fled Hit, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. [ID:nL6N0S82NI]
The war in Anbar and its conquest of Mosul have allowed Islamic State to hold territory from eastern Syria across Sunni parts of Iraq with the goal of establishing a caliphate.
SUICIDE BOMBERS
In northern Syria, three Islamic State fighters blew themselves up on Monday in Kobani, a monitoring group said, with the hardline militants making slight advances inside the besieged Kurdish town.
In one of the attacks, an Islamic State fighter detonated a truck laden with explosives in a northern district of Kobani, which has been the scene of heavy clashes between Kurdish forces and Islamic State fighters, Kurdish sources said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported more heavy fighting on Monday inside the city, where U.S.-led air strikes have so far failed to halt the militants' advance.
Rami Abderahman of the Observatory said one of the suicide attacks targeted a bus station in the northwest of Kobani and that the group had taken around 50 percent of the town.
"They now control the cultural centre, which means they have advanced further inside the town," he said.
The Observatory said there had been at least five U.S.-led strikes early on Monday, mainly targeting southern districts of Kobani, which is known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic. Clashes also continued to the east, killing a dozen Islamic State fighters.
The militant group wants to seize the town to consolidate a dramatic sweep across northern Iraq and Syria. [ID:nL6N0S821H]
The United States and Saudi Arabia launched eight air strikes on Sunday and Monday against Islamic State targets in Syria, including seven near Kobani, the U.S. military said.
Four strikes southwest of Kobani hit Islamic State units and destroyed a machine gun firing position, while three strikes northeast of Kobani struck a militant unit and damaged a staging location and several buildings. Another strike hit an Islamic State garrison northwest of Raqqa, the military said.
DENIAL
In a blow to U.S. hopes, Turkey denied it had agreed to let the United States use its Incirlik air base in the fight against Islamic State, and sources at the Turkish prime minister's office said talks were continuing on the subject.
Turkey had however reached an agreement with Washington on training Syrian rebels, the sources told reporters, without saying who would train the insurgents or where.
The comments come after U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Turkey had agreed to let forces from a U.S.-led military coalition use its bases for activities inside Iraq and Syria and to train moderate Syrian rebels.
Syria's air force meanwhile carried out strikes against rebels at more than double its usual rate on Monday, according to the Observatory.
The intensified air strikes by President Bashar al-Assad's government will add to the fear among Assad's opponents that he is taking advantage of the U.S. strikes to crush other foes, including the "moderate opposition" that Washington backs.
The United States says it does not want to help Assad's government despite bombing Islamic State, the most powerful group fighting against Damascus in a three-year-old civil war. Washington aims to help arm moderates to fight against both Assad and Islamic State.
But within days of the start of U.S. air strikes in Syria last month, Assad's government stepped up the tempo of its own air campaign against rebels closer to the capital Damascus.
The Observatory said the Syrian air force had struck 40 times on Monday in areas in Idlib and Hama provinces, including dropping oil drums packed with explosives and shrapnel.
Sunday 12 October 2014
US used attack helicopters near Baghdad
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(AP) — The top U.S. military officer says the U.S. called in Apache helicopters to prevent Iraqi forces from being overrun by Islamic State militants in a recent fight near Baghdad's airport.
Gen. Martin Dempsey says the extremists were within about 15 miles and had they overrun the Iraqis, "it was a straight shot to the airport."
The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman also tells ABC's "This Week" that there could be circumstances in the future when a no-fly zone over Syria could be part of the military campaign.
Dempsey says there may come a time when he might recommend that American advisers accompany Iraqi troops against Islamic State targets. Dempsey thinks Mosul, in northern Iraq, could be the "decisive" battle in the ground campaign at some point.
Kurds urge more air strikes in Kobani; monitor warns of defeat
(Reuters) - Kurdish forces defending Kobani urged a U.S.-led coalition to escalate air strikes on Islamic State fighters who tightened their grip on the Syrian town at the border with Turkey on Saturday.
A group that monitors the Syrian civil war said the Kurdish forces faced inevitable defeat in Kobani if Turkey did not open its border to let through arms, something Ankara has appeared reluctant to do.
The U.S.-led coalition escalated air strikes on Islamic State in and around Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, some four days ago. The main Kurdish armed group, the YPG, said in a statement the air strikes had inflicted heavy losses on Islamic State, but had been less effective in the last two days.
A Kurdish military official, speaking to Reuters from Kobani, said street fighting was making it harder for the warplanes to target Islamic State positions.
"We have a problem, which is the war between houses," said Esmat Al-Sheikh, head of the Kobani defense council.
"The air strikes are benefiting us, but Islamic State is bringing tanks and artillery from the east. We didn't see them with tanks, but yesterday we saw T-57 tanks," he added.
While Islamic State has been able to reinforce its fighters, the Kurds have not. Islamic State has besieged the town to the east, south and west, meaning the Kurds' only possible supply route is the Turkish border to the north.
The U.N. envoy to Syria on Friday called on Turkey to help prevent a slaughter in Kobani, asking it to let "volunteers" cross the frontier to reinforce Kurdish forces defending the town that lies within sight of Turkish territory.
Turkey has yet to respond to the remarks by Staffan de Mistura, who said he feared a repeat of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia. Kurdish leaders in Syria have asked Ankara to establish a corridor through Turkey to allow aid and military supplies to reach Kobani.
A senior Kurdish militant has threatened Turkey with a new Kurdish revolt if it sticks with its current policy of non-intervention in the battle for Kobani.
Islamic State "is getting supplies and men, while Turkey is preventing Kobani from getting ammunition. Even with the resistance, if things stay like this, the Kurdish forces will be like a car without fuel," said Rami Abdelrahman, who runs the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict in Syria through sources on the ground.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Saturday that retired General John Allen, a U.S. envoy charged with building an international coalition against Islamic State, had just returned to Washington and reported progress.
"There was considerable progress made by General Allen specifically with Turkey," Hagel told a news conference in Santiago. He said U.S. military teams would hold talks in Turkey next week.
"They'll be spending a good deal (of time) next week with Turkey's general staff and appropriate leaders going through the specifics of Turkey's commitments to help the coalition specifically to train and equip areas of their contribution," he added.
PLUMES OF SMOKE
Turkey has been reluctant to help the Kurds defending Kobani, one of three areas of northern Syria where Kurds have established self-rule since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. The main Syrian Kurdish group has close ties to the PKK, which waged a militant campaign for Kurdish rights in Turkey and is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.
Tall plumes of smoke were seen rising from Kobani on Saturday and the sound of gunfire was close to constant as battles raged into the afternoon, a Reuters journalist observing from the Turkish side of the frontier said.
After sunset, the sounds of gunfire and shelling continued. Red tracer gunfire lit the sky in the eastern sector of the town, much of which has fallen to Islamic State. Battles also raged at the southern and western edges of the town.
A Kurdish military official in the Syrian city of Qamishli, another area under Kurdish control, said thousands of fighters stood ready to go to Kobani were Turkey to open a corridor.
But Ghaliya Naamat, the official, said the fighters in Kobani needed better weaponry. "Medium-range weapons is what is lacking," she told Reuters by telephone.
"According to the news and the information in Kobani, there is no shortage in numbers. The shortage is in ammunition."
If U.S.-led air strikes fail to stop Islamic State militants from overrunning Kobani, it would be a setback for U.S. President Barack Obama's three-week-old air campaign against Islamic State in Syria.
The campaign is part of a U.S. strategy to degrade and destroy the group that has seized large areas of Syria and Iraq, threatening to redraw borders of the Middle East according to its ultra-strict vision of Islam.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that it is possible Islamic State could seize full control of the town in coming days. If that happens, the group could boast that it withstood American air power. The U.S.-led coalition has launched 50 strikes against militant positions around the town.
Hagel, in Santiago as part of a Latin America tour and a summit of Defense Ministers of the Americas in Peru next week, said U.S. air strikes were aimed at driving back Islamic State fighters from Kobani.
"We know ISIL is occupying part of the outskirts of Kobani. It is a dangerous situation and we recognize that," Hagel told the news conference in Santiago.
"We are doing what we can do through our air strikes to help drive back ISIL. In fact there has been some progress made in that area. It is a very difficult problem," he added.
The U.S. military conducted six air strikes against Islamic State militants near Kobani on Friday and Saturday, U.S. Central Command said.
"WE NEED SOMETHING EFFECTIVE"
While much of Kobani's population has fled, 500-700 mostly elderly people remained, with 10,000-13,000 nearby in a border area between Syria and Turkey, U.N. envoy De Mistura said.
The Observatory said no fewer than 226 Kurdish fighters and 298 Islamic State militants had been killed since the group launched its Kobani offensive in mid-September. It said the overall death toll including civilians was probably much higher.
Islamic State views the Kurdish YPG and its supporters as apostates due to their secular ideology.
Idris Nassan, deputy foreign minister of Kobani district, told Reuters by telephone that air strikes had helped Kurdish fighters regain some territory in the south of the city but they were not enough.
"A few days ago, ISIS attacked with a Humvee vehicle, they use mortars, cannons, tanks. We don't need just Kalashnikovs and bullets. We need something effective since they captured many tanks and military vehicles in Iraq," he said, calling for outside powers to send weapons.
"The supply of fighters is very good for YPG," he added. "But fighters coming without arms, without weaponry is not going to make a critical difference."
The Kobani crisis has sparked deadly violence in Turkey. The country's Kurdish population numbers 15 million, and Turkish Kurds have risen up since Tuesday against President Tayyip Erdogan's government, accusing it of allowing their kin to be slaughtered.
At least 33 people have been killed in three days of riots across the mainly Kurdish southeast, including two police officers shot dead in an apparent attempt to assassinate a police chief. The police chief was wounded.
Thursday 9 October 2014
Turkey, Kurd tensions worry US in fight for Kobani
(AP) — Even as it prods Turkey to step up in the global fight against Islamic State militants, the United States is worried that Ankara might use military action to target Kurdish fighters who are the last line of defense against extremists trying to take over the Syrian border town of Kobani.
In a careful-what-you-wish-for scenario, U.S. officials acknowledge that drawing Ankara into the war could open a new line of attack against a Kurdish movement that has for decades sought greater autonomy inside Turkey.
At the same time, Americans officials fear Turkey could simply choose to remain out of the fray, and let two of its enemies — the Islamic State group and Kurdish guerrillas — fight for Kobani. That would give the militants an opportunity to do as much damage to the Kurdish fighters in Syria as possible.
Neither scenario is agreeable, the officials said. The issues and implications are expected to be broached — delicately — when U.S. envoys coordinating the international response to the Islamic State group meet Thursday and Friday with Turkish leaders in Ankara. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the diplomatic situation by name.
For months, Turkey resisted using force against the Islamic State, which has rampaged through large amounts of territory just over its borders in Iraq and Syria. Until recently, its reluctance had been mostly excused out of security concerns for dozens of Turkish diplomats and employees who were kidnapped by the militants from the Iraqi city Mosul in June. The hostages were freed last month.
Since then, American officials have grown increasingly frustrated by Ankara's inaction against the Islamic militants, yet simultaneously nervous about what a Turkish military response would mean for the Kurdish fighters at Kobani.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday that Turkey is prepared to take on a bigger role once a deal is reached with the U.S.-led coalition. "Turkey will not hold back from carrying out its role," he said.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have spoken at least twice this week, and special U.S. envoy retired Marine Gen. John Allen is hoping for answers in his meetings in Ankara on how Turkey plans to join the battle.
"Clearly, on their border, this is of enormous concern to Turkey — and they recognize that," said Kerry, who also described the U.S. as "deeply concerned about the people of Kobani."
Kerry also sounded a note of caution. "These things have to be done in a thoughtful and careful way so everybody understands who is doing what and what the implications are of their doing it and where you go as a result," he said Wednesday.
Last week, Turkey's parliament approved a measure to allow for assaulting the Islamic State group, a step the U.S. and other world leaders viewed as Ankara's decision to enter the conflict. But largely left unsaid was that the measure still allows Turkish troops to take aim at the Kurdish separatists. The Kurdish fighters in Syria, known as the YPG, are tied to the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, the Kurdish separatist guerrilla movement that is fiercely opposed by the Turks. Both Ankara and Washington have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.
Ankara is "committed to fighting ISIS terrorists and PKK terrorists," said Bulent Aliriza, a former Turkish diplomat now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, using an acronym for the Islamic State militants.
Turkey "has not intervened in Kobani to break the siege," Aliriza said. "The question is, if it were to intervene, would it fight both?"
The PKK and Turkey agreed to a cease-fire last year, but the relative peace has begun to unravel. Tensions between the two sides have flared frequently, and this week alone, 14 people were killed as Kurdish protesters clashed with police in Turkey over Ankara's hands-off approach in Kobani.
The U.S. does not consider the Syrian Kurdish fighting force or its political wing, the Kurdish Democratic Union, terrorist organizations. Still, Washington has distanced itself from both. The State Department said this week that U.S. officials have engaged with the Kurdish political party only through intermediaries.
But the Obama administration knows that the Kurdish fighters in Syria are the only force on the ground standing between the Islamic State militants and Kobani. More than 400 people have been killed in brutal clashes, according to activists, and fighting has forced at least 200,000 town residents and villagers to flee across the border into Turkey.
The U.S. military conducted five airstrikes against Islamic State positions near Kobani on Wednesday and Thursday, U.S. Central Command reported, saying, "Indications are that Kurdish militia there continue to control most of the city and are holding out" against the militants.
Still, "Kobani could be taken. We recognize that," Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said Wednesday in Washington. "Air power is not going to be alone enough to save that city."
Turkey has said it does not want Kobani to fall. The country boasts the second-largest army among NATO forces, and has stationed a handful of troops in Syria — at a memorial south of Kobani that is dedicated to Suleyman Shah, grandfather of Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire.
Ankara has long called on the U.S. to increase its own military action in Syria — both against Sunni extremist groups and the government of President Bashar Assad. For years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demanded the creation of a humanitarian corridor buffer zone inside Syria, as well as a no-fly zone to secure Turkey's borders and stem the flow of refugees.
The White House and Pentagon maintained Wednesday that the U.S. is not considering supporting a buffer zone in Syria, which would be costly, complex and controversial to enforce.
But Kerry and British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond both said the idea of a buffer zone was worth examining, although they stopped short of endorsing it. Their comments came after French President Francois Hollande spoke with Erdogan and issued a statement in Paris announcing his support for a buffer zone to protect refugees.
Islamic State seizes large areas of Syrian town despite air strikes
(Reuters) - Islamic State fighters seized more than a third of the Syrian border town of Kobani, a monitoring group said on Thursday, as U.S.-led air strikes failed to halt their advance and Turkish forces looked on without intervening.
With Washington ruling out a ground operation in Syria, Turkey said it was unrealistic to expect it to mount a cross-border operation alone to relieve the mainly Kurdish town.
The U.S. military said Kurdish forces appeared to be holding out in the town, which lies within sight of Turkish territory, following fresh airstrikes in the area against a militant training camp and fighters.
However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamic State, still widely known by its former acronym of ISIS, had pushed forward on Thursday.
"ISIS control more than a third of Kobani - all eastern areas, a small part of the northeast and an area in the southeast," said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Observatory, which monitors the Syrian civil war.
The commander of Kobani's heavily outgunned Kurdish defenders confirmed that the militants had made major gains, after a three-week battle that has also caused the worst street clashes in years between Turkish police and Kurdish protesters.
Militia chief Esmat al-Sheikh put the area controlled by Islamic State, which controls large amounts of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, at about a quarter of the town. "The clashes are ongoing - street battles," he said by telephone from the town.
Explosions rocked Kobani throughout the day, with black smoke visible from the Turkish border a few kilometres (miles) away. Islamic State hoisted its black flag in the town overnight and a stray projectile landed 3 km (2 miles) inside Turkey.
The town's defenders say the United States is giving only token support with its air strikes, while Turkish tanks sent to the frontier look on but do nothing to defend the town, where the United Nations says only a few hundred remain. Over 180,000 people from the city and surrounding area have fled into Turkey.
U.S. Central Command said it had conducted five strikes near Kobani on Wednesday and Thursday, and that Kurdish forces still appeared to control most of the town.
The strikes damaged an Islamic State training camp and destroyed a support building, as well as hitting one small unit and one large unit of militant fighters, Centcom said.
UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
Turkey's foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, played down the chances of its forces going to the aid of Kobani.
"It is not realistic to expect Turkey to conduct a ground operation on its own," he told a joint news conference with visiting NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. However, he added: "We are holding talks ... Once there is a common decision, Turkey will not hold back from playing its part."
Ankara resents suggestions from Washington that it is not pulling its weight, and wants broader joint action that also targets the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "We strongly reject allegations of Turkish responsibility for the ISIS advance," said a senior Ankara government source.
"Our allies, especially the U.S. administration, dragged their feet for a very long time before deciding to take action against the catastrophic events happening in Syria," he added.
Turkey has long advocated action against Assad during the civil war, which grew out of a popular uprising in 2011. However, the United States called off air strikes on Damascus government forces at the last minute last year when Assad agreed to give up his chemical weapons. It has also managed so far to fly sorties across Syria with tacit consent from Assad.
Kerry, too, played down Kobani's significance as a pointer to U.S. policy, and said other towns might also be vulnerable to Islamic State as the U.S.-led efforts in the region would take "weeks and months" to play out.
"Kobani is a tragedy because it represents the evil of ISIS, but it is not the definition either of the strategy or the full measure of what is happening with response to ISIS," he told reporters in Boston.
"We are only a few weeks into building the coalition," Kerry said. "The primary goal of this effort has been to provide the space for Iraq to be able to get its government in place and to be begin to push back and to begin to be able to deprive them (Islamic State militants) of their command and control, their supply centres and their training. That is taking place."
Retired U.S. General John Allen, asked by President Barack Obama to oversee the creation and work of the anti-Islamic State coalition, was in Ankara on Thursday for two days of talks with Turkey's leaders.
President Tayyip Erdogan wants the U.S.-led alliance to enforce a "no-fly zone" to prevent Assad's air force flying over Syrian territory near the Turkish border, and to create a safe area for around 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey to return.
Stoltenberg said neither had been discussed by NATO.
TURKISH CLASHES
The anger felt by Turkey's Kurds over Ankara's failure to help their brethren in Syria threatens to unravel a fragile peace process that Erdogan hoped would end a 30-year armed struggle for autonomy by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
At least 25 people died in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey on Wednesday during clashes between security forces and Kurds demanding that the government do more to help Kobani.
On Thursday, gunmen wounded a police officer in an attack on a police station in Turkey's southeastern province of Siirt, where five people died during earlier protests. There were also clashes in Istanbul and Ankara.
Wednesday's violence prompted curfews to be imposed in five southeastern provinces, restrictions unseen since the height of the PKK's war against Turkish forces in the 1990s, and streets were calmer as a result.
Erdogan said protesters had exploited the events in Kobani as an excuse to sabotage the peace process.
Selahattin Demirtas, head of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which had urged Turkish Kurds to take to the streets this week, denied that this had provoked violence. He appealed for calm and said jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan had called for talks with the government to be stepped up.
Kurdish leaders in Syria have asked Ankara, so far in vain, to establish a corridor through Turkey to allow aid and possibly arms and fighters to reach Kobani.
Ankara is suspicious of Syria's Kurds for having achieved self-rule by tacit agreement with Assad after he lost control of the region to anti-government rebels, and fears this could revive secessionist aspirations among its own Kurds.
Turkish police fired tear gas against Kurdish protesters in the town of Suruc near the border overnight, and the shutters of most shops were kept shut in a traditional mark of protest.
Ferdi, a 21-year-old Turkish Kurd watching the smoke rising from Kobani, said if the town fell, the conflict would spread to Turkey. "In fact," he said, "it already has spread here."
Wednesday 8 October 2014
Riots in Turkey kill 21 over failure to aid besieged Syrian Kurds
(Reuters) - At least 21 people were killed in riots across Turkey, the deadliest street unrest in years, after the Kurdish minority rose up in fury at the government's refusal to protect a besieged Syrian town from Islamic State.
Street battles raged between Kurdish protesters and police across Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, in Istanbul and in Ankara, as the fallout from war in Syria and Iraq threatened to unravel the NATO member's own delicate peace process with Kurds.
Across the frontier, U.S.-led air strikes appeared to have pushed Islamic State insurgents back to the edges of the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani, which the militants had been poised to capture this week after a three-week siege.
Washington said its war planes, along with those of coalition ally the United Arab Emirates, had struck nine targets in Syria, including six near Kobani that hit Islamic State artillery and armored vehicles. It also struck Islamic State positions in Iraq five times.
Nevertheless, Kobani remained under intense bombardment from Islamic State emplacements, within sight of Turkish tanks that have so far done nothing to help.
U.S. officials were quoted voicing impatience with the Turks for refusing to join the coalition against Islamic State fighters who have seized wide areas of Syria and Iraq. Turkey says it could join but only if Washington agrees to use force against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as well as the Sunni Muslim jihadists fighting him in a three-year-old civil war.
Turkey's own Kurds, who make up the majority in the southeast of the country, say that President Tayyip Erdogan is stalling while their brethren are killed in Kobani.
Police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse demonstrators who burned cars and tires. Authorities imposed curfews in at least five provinces, the first time such measures have been used widely since the early 1990s.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara that 19 people were killed and 145 wounded in riots across Turkey, vowing that Turkey's own peace process with Kurdish separatists would not be wrecked by "vandalism". Dogan news agency later said the death toll had climbed to 21. At least 10 people died in clashes in Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish city in Turkey's southeast, according to Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker, who said an all-day curfew imposed there from Tuesday night would be reviewed on Wednesday.
Pockets of protesters defying the curfew clashed with security forces there later on Wednesday, local media reported.
Others died in clashes between protesters and police in the eastern provinces of Mus, Siirt and Batman. Thirty people were wounded, including eight police officers, in Istanbul.
Disturbances spread to other countries with Kurdish and Turkish populations. Police in Germany said 14 people were hurt in clashes there between Kurds and radical Islamists.
The unrest in Turkey, which has NATO's second largest armed forces, exposes the difficulty Washington has faced in building a coalition to fight Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, two countries with complex, multi-sided civil wars in which every country in the region has a stake.
BLACK FLAG
Islamic State fighters besieging Kobani hoisted their black flag on the eastern edge of the town on Monday. Since then, U.S.-led air strikes have been redoubled, and the town's defenders say the insurgents have been pushed back.
Intense gunfire and loud explosions could be heard on Wednesday morning from across the Turkish frontier, and huge plumes of gray smoke and dust rose above the town, where the United Nations says only a few hundred inhabitants remain.
"They are now outside the entrances of the city of Kobani. The shelling and bombardment was very effective and as a result of it, IS (Islamic State) have been pushed from many positions," Idris Nassan, deputy foreign minister of the Kurdish-run Kobani district administration, told Reuters by phone.
"This is their biggest retreat since their entry into the city and we can consider this as the beginning of the countdown of their retreat from the area."
U.S. officials, acknowledging it will be difficult to shield Kobani from the air, have played down its strategic importance.
"People need to understand we need a little strategic patience here. This group is not going to go away tomorrow, and Kobani may fall. We can't predict whether it will or it won't," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said on CNN.
"There will be other towns that they will threaten, and there will be other towns that they will take. It is going to take a little bit of time."
Secretary of State John Kerry said: "As horrific as it is to watch in real time what is happening in Kobani ..., you have to step back and understand the strategic objective."
Islamic State has been advancing on the town from three sides and pounding it with artillery despite dogged resistance from heavily outgunned Kurdish forces.
Kurdish media said Kurdish fighters thwarted a car bomb on positions in Kobani, saying the vehicle blew up before reaching its target. An Islamic State source on Twitter said the attack destroyed a police station. Neither account could be verified but a huge explosion could be seen from across the border.
In Turkey, parliament voted last week to authorize cross-border intervention, but Erdogan and his government have so far held back, saying they will join military action only as part of an alliance that also confronts Assad.
Erdogan wants the alliance to enforce a "no-fly zone" to prevent Assad's air force flying over Syrian territory near the Turkish border and create a safe area for an estimated 1.2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey to return.
France said it supported the idea of a safe area, and Britain said it was studying it. But it is clear the proposal has not taken hold in Washington, which has been bombing Islamic State targets in Syria without Assad raising objections, and does not want to be dragged into a conflict against Damascus.
"At the moment, the American air force is flying all over Syria with the permission of the Assad government," said Tim Ripley, a defense expert for Jane's Defence Weekly.
"To try and impose a no-fly zone would potentially involve a major air war against one of the biggest air forces in the Middle East ... which would only be a distraction from the fight against (Islamic State)," he said.
Kerry, repeating lukewarm views of other U.S. officials, said: "The buffer zone is an idea that has been out there. It is worth examining, it's worth looking at very, very closely." Pentagon spokesman Kirby said: "It is now not on the table as a military option that we are considering."
U.S. IMPATIENCE
The conflict has already opened up a fissure in relations between the United States and Turkey, its most powerful ally in the area. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was forced to apologize last week after Erdogan took umbrage at comments Biden made at Harvard University, in which he blamed Turkey's open borders for allowing Islamic State to bring in recruits.
An unnamed senior U.S. official told the New York Times on Tuesday there was "growing angst about Turkey dragging its feet to act to prevent a massacre less than a mile from its border".
"This isn’t how a NATO ally acts while hell is unfolding a stone's throw from their border," the official said.
Kerry said Turkey was still deciding what role it would play. Retired U.S. General John Allen, charged with building a coalition against Islamic State after it seized about a third of neighboring Iraq, is due in Turkey this week.
But, while taking in Kobani's refugees and treating its wounded, Turkey has deep reservations about deploying its own army in Syria. Beyond becoming a target for Islamic State, it fears being sucked into Syria's three-year-old civil war.
It also distrusts Syria's Kurds, allies of Turkey's own Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which waged a decades-long insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in which around 40,000 people were killed.
The PKK's jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, has said any massacre of Kurds in Kobani would doom a fragile peace process with the Turkish authorities, one of the most important initiatives of Erdogan's decade in power.
The street protests across Turkey were already making the prospect of reconciliation with nationalists seem more remote, as protesters set fire to Turkish flags and attacked statues of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Selahattin Demirtas, co-chair of the HDP, Turkey's leading Kurdish party, condemned such acts as "provocations carried out to prevent help coming to the east (Kobani) from the west".
Monday 6 October 2014
Islamic State raises flag in eastern Kobani, Kurds say town has not fallen
(Reuters) - Islamic State raised its flag on a building on the outskirts of the Syrian frontier town of Kobani on Monday after an assault of almost three weeks, but the town's Kurdish defenders said its fighters had not reached the city centre.
A black flag belonging to Islamic State was visible from across the Turkish border atop a four-storey building close to the scene of some of the most intense clashes in recent days.
The radical al Qaeda offshoot has been battling to seize the predominantly Kurdish town after taking over large swathes of territory in northern Syria and Iraq in recent months.
Air strikes by American and Gulf state warplanes have failed to halt its advance on Kobani, which it has besieged from three sides and pounded with heavy artillery.
Local sources inside Kobani confirmed that the group, formerly known as ISIL, had planted its flag, but said Kurdish forces had repelled its advances so far.
"ISIL have only planted a flag on one building," said Ismail Eskin, a journalist in the town. "That is not inside the city, it's on the eastern side. They are not inside the city. Intense clashes are continuing. The bodies of 25 (Islamic State) fighters are there."
Mortars have rained down on residential areas of Kobani, and stray fire has hit Turkish territory in recent days. But Kurdish pleas for more effective military help have so far gone unanswered, despite the presence of Turkish tanks arrayed along the border, within sight of the town.
Islamic State also fought intense battles over the weekend for control of Mistanour, a strategic hill overlooking Kobani. A video released by the group on Sunday appeared to show its fighters in control of radio masts on the summit, but the footage could not be independently confirmed and Eskin said fighting for the high ground was continuing on Monday.
ONCE A HAVEN
Until recently, the city had hardly been touched by the civil war that has ravaged much of Syria, and even offered a haven for refugees from fighting elsewhere, as President Bashar al-Assad chose to let the Kurdish population have virtual autonomy.
But now Islamic State wants to take the town to consolidate a dramatic sweep across northern Iraq and Syria, in the name of an absolutist version of Sunni Islam, that has sent shockwaves through the Middle East.
Beheadings, mass killings and torture have spread fear of the group across the region, with villages emptying at their approach and an estimated 180,000 people fleeing into Turkey from the Kobani region.
On Sunday, one female Kurdish fighter blew herself up rather than be captured by Islamic State after running out of ammunition, local sources and a monitoring group reported.
Turkish hospitals have been treating a steady stream of wounded Kurdish fighters being brought across the frontier.
Witnesses who had fled Kobani said that old women were being given grenades to throw, and young women with no fighting experience were being armed and sent into battle.
Kobani's defenders vowed not to relinquish the town, raising fears of a massacre if Islamic State do break through.
"If they enter Kobani, it will be a graveyard for us and for them. We will not let them enter Kobani as long as we live," Esmat al-Sheikh, head of the Kobani Defence Authority, said by telephone earlier on Monday.
"We either win or die. We will resist to the end," he added as heavy weapons fire echoed from the eastern side of town.
"WE NEED MORE HELP"
Speaking last week, the co-chair of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) told Reuters that Islamic State had brought large parts of its arsenal from its de facto capital at Raqqa, 140 km to the southeast, to the assault on Kobani.
"If (Islamic State) is defeated here in Kobani, it will be defeated in Raqqa and throughout Syria," Asya Abdullah said.
"We are happy about the U.S. air strikes. But really, this is not enough. We need more air strikes to be effective against (Islamic State) weapons, to eradicate and destroy (them)."
On Monday, Kurdish politicians confirmed that the PYD's other co-chair, Saleh Muslim, had met Turkish officials to urge them to allow weapons into Kobani from Turkey, although no further details were available.
Turkey has so far given no hint that it could join the fight against Islamic State close to its borders, beyond gestures of self-defence such as returning fire at Islamic State fighters in response to mortar shells landing on Turkish territory.
Over the weekend, President Tayyip Erdogan vowed to retaliate if Islamic State attacked Turkish forces, and on Monday Turkish tanks deployed along the border for the second time in a week, some with guns pointing towards Syria, apparently in response to stray fire.
Still, Islamic State's release last month of 46 Turkish hostages, and a parliamentary motion last week renewing a mandate allowing Turkish troops to cross into Syria and Iraq, have raised expectations that Ankara may be planning a more active role.
Its calculations are complex, however.
For three decades, Ankara has fought an armed insurgency by its own Kurdish PKK militants demanding greater autonomy in Turkey's southeast.
Analysts say it is now wary of helping Syrian Kurdish forces near Kobani as they have strong links with the PKK and have maintained ambiguous relations with Assad, to whom Turkey is implacably opposed.
Against that are warnings from the leaders of Turkey's Kurds that allowing Syria's Kurds to be driven from Kobani would spell the end of Erdogan's delicately poised drive to negotiate an end to his own Kurdish insurgency and permanently disarm the PKK.
Saturday 4 October 2014
Parents of American held by Islamic State appeal for his release
(Reuters) - The parents of an American humanitarian worker held hostage by Islamic State militants appealed for his release on Saturday, speaking in a statement and a video message that highlighted his aid work and mentioned his conversion to Islam.
Ed and Paula Kassig, of Indianapolis, Indiana, urged the release of their son, Peter Kassig, 26. Kassig was threatened in a video issued on Friday by Islamic State militants that purported to show the beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning, 47.
Kassig's parents have said through a spokesperson that he was taken captive on his way to the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor on Oct. 1, 2013. He was doing humanitarian work through Special Emergency Response and Assistance, an organization he founded in 2012 to treat refugees from Syria, the family has said.
Kassig converted to Islam while in captivity and has adopted the name Abdul Rahman, the family spokesperson said. In their appeal for his release, his parents mentioned the Muslim holy festival of Eid, observed on Saturday.
"As Muslims around the world, including our son Abdul-Rahman Kassig, celebrate Eid ul-Adha, the faith and sacrifice of Ibrahim, and the mercy of Allah, we appeal to those holding our son to show the same mercy and set him free," the Kassig parents said in a written statement.
In the video, Paula Kassig addressed her son in a personal message that she said she hoped he would see.
"We are so very proud of you and the work you have done to bring humanitarian aid to the Syrian people," she said.
Kassig served in the U.S. Army during the Iraq war before being medically discharged, the family has said. Pentagon records show he spent a year in the army as a Ranger and was deployed to Iraq from April to July 2007.
After leaving the army, Kassig became an emergency medical technician and traveled to Lebanon in May 2012, volunteering in hospitals and treating Palestinian refugees and those fleeing Syria's nearly four-year civil war.
Ed Kassig, who works as a school teacher, said in his part of the video message that his son could not control U.S. policy.
"There is so much that is beyond our control," Ed Kassig said. "We asked our government to change its actions, but like our son, we have no more control over the U.S. government than you have over the breaking of dawn."
The beheading of Henning, condemned by British Prime Minister David Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama, was the fourth such killing of a Westerner by Islamic State, following the deaths of two U.S. journalists and a British aid worker.
UK leader: British hostage's killers must be found
(AP) — The Islamic State extremists who have beheaded another Western hostage are deaf to reason and must be destroyed, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Saturday as Muslims worldwide were urged to pray for the victim on one of Islam's holiest days.
Cameron, speaking after a security briefing at his rural retreat Chequers, said Friday's slaying of 47-year-old English aid worker Alan Henning demonstrated that Islamic State militants were committed to inflicting horror for horror's sake.
Asked whether he believed Islamic State fighters would kill more hostages, Cameron said they would have to be hunted down to be stopped. He declined to say whether Britain would extend its involvement in U.S.-led airstrikes on the Islamic State group to Syria, where the hostage killings are believed to have happened.
"The fact that this was a kind, gentle, compassionate and caring man who had simply gone to help others, the fact they could murder him in the way they did, shows what we are dealing with," Cameron said. "This is going to be our struggle now. ... We must do everything we can to defeat this organization."
Henning, a taxi driver from the town of Eccles in northwest England, was abducted minutes after his aid convoy entered Syria on Dec. 26. He was the fourth Western hostage to be killed by Islamic State since mid-August, following two American journalists and another British aid worker. In their latest video, Henning's killers linked their action to a vote Sept. 26 in British Parliament to deploy the Royal Air Force against Islamic State positions in Iraq, but not Syria.
Muslim leaders across Britain urged worshippers worldwide to pray for Henning and peace in the Middle East as they gathered at mosques to celebrate Eid al-Adha, Islam's annual "festival of sacrifice."
"Millions should be praying today for Alan Henning, a good and honorable man," said Muslim peace activist Shaukat Warraich, speaking outside a mosque in the central English city of Birmingham.
Egypt's Foreign Ministry denounced what it called a "barbaric and savage act that fully contradicts Islamic religion tenets and the simplest human and ethical rules."
Britain's former army chief of staff, Lord Dannatt, called for British air power to be deployed in Syria as well as Iraq. "Dealing with half a problem is not going to solve the problem," Dannatt said.
The video mirrored other beheading videos shot by the Islamic State group, and ended with a militant threatening a 26-year-old American hostage, Peter Kassig.
"Obama, you have started your aerial bombardment of Sham (Syria), which keeps on striking our people, so it is only right that we continue to strike the necks of your people," the masked militant in the video said.
National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden confirmed that Islamic State militants had Kassig.
"We will continue to use every tool at our disposal — military, diplomatic, law enforcement and intelligence — to try to bring Peter home to his family," Hayden said.
This is the fourth such video released by the Islamic State group. Previous victims were American reporter James Foley, American-Israeli journalist Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines.
FBI Director James Comey says American officials believe they know the identity of the masked militant, who speaks in a London accent. Comey has declined to name the man or reveal his nationality.
According to his military record, Kassig enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2004, served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, a special operations unit, was deployed to Iraq in 2007 and medically discharged later that year at the rank of private first class.
His parents, Ed and Paula Kassig, called for the world to pray for their son.
They said Kassig had been working for the relief organization he founded, Special Emergency Response and Assistance, or SERA, when he was captured a year ago on his way to Deir Ezzour in eastern Syria. He converted to Islam while in captivity and the family has heard from former hostages that his faith has provided him comfort.
The Islamic State group has its roots in al-Qaida's Iraqi affiliate but was expelled from the global terror network over its brutal tactics and refusal to obey orders to confine its activities to Iraq. It grew more extreme and powerful amid the 3-year civil war in Syria, launching a lightning offensive this summer that captured territory in both countries.
Islamic State militants may hold many more hostages. On Friday, the father of John Cantlie, a British photojournalist held by the group, appealed for his release in a video, describing his son as a friend of Syria.
Obama envoy sees long road ahead in war with Islamic State
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(Reuters) - The U.S. envoy charged by President Barack Obama with building a coalition to fight the militant group Islamic State warned on Friday that the war against the jihadists was in its early stages.
"The fight will not be easy. There will be ebb and flow on the battlefield," retired General John Allen told reporters during a visit to Baghdad. "This will take time and requires patience."
The Islamic State has seized large chunks of territory in Iraq since June, when the Iraqi military collapsed as the militants took northern Iraq's biggest city, Mosul, and then charged through the Tigris River valley.
The jihadists also control much of eastern Syria, which is embroiled in a three-year-old civil war, and have erased much of the border between the neighboring countries as it pursues its goal of creating a caliphate.
Allen cautioned that launching a campaign to take Mosul was not on the immediate horizon.
"It will kick off within a year. I can't be more specific. It's not a single battle. It's a campaign," Allen said.
Allen also described the Iraqi government's hopes to woo Sunni tribes to fight Islamic State as in its early stages.
"There is no cookie-cutter approach to the tribes. Each one has to be taken separately," he said.
"How that ultimately plays out in terms of what they can harvest from a relationship with the tribes I think is going to unfold over time."
Allen, mindful of deep suspicion among Iraq's Shi'ite majority of the United States' intent nearly three years after the U.S. withdrew its troops from the county, reiterated Obama's message that no U.S. combat troops would be sent to Iraq.
"We must build Iraqi capacity to take on the fight. This is why the United States will not send combat troops to Iraq, but instead will continue our support for Iraqi security forces through military advisers training and capacity building," he said.
Allen, a former military commander in Anbar province in 2007, is expected to visit Belgium, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey on this trip.
Accompanied by his deputy, Brett McGurk, he arrived in Iraq on Thursday to meet Iraqi officials and regional leaders "on U.S. support for and cooperation with Iraq in the fight against ISIL," the State Department said.
U.S. officials have said Allen's main purpose is to develop greater support for the coalition, which has conducted air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria.
Friday 3 October 2014
Islamic State beheads British hostage Henning in new video
(Reuters) - Islamic State militants fighting in Iraq and Syria released a video on Friday that purported to show the beheading of a man it identified as British citizen Alan Henning.
The footage on YouTube, which was linked to on pro-Islamic State Twitter feeds, showed a man in an orange jumpsuit kneeling in a landscape who was identified as Henning.
"Because of our parliament's decision to attack the Islamic State, I, as a member of the British public, will now pay the price for that decision," the kneeling man says. Another man dressed in black and wearing a balaclava stands next to him.
A male voice then says, "The blood of David Haines was on your hands Cameron,” in a reference to Britain’s prime minister. “Alan Henning will also be slaughtered, but his blood is on the hands of the British parliament."
The black-clad man later introduces another hostage who he identifies as American Peter Edward Kassig.
U.S. officials confirmed that an American of that name was being held by the militants and said they had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the video, titled "Another Message to America and its Allies."
"If true, this is a further disgusting murder," a British Foreign Office spokesman said. "We are offering the family every support possible; they ask to be left alone at this time."
It is "another demonstration of the brutality" of Islamic State militants if the video proves authentic, Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, told a White House news briefing.
The beheading of Henning was the fourth such killing of a Westerner by Islamic State, which has seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria and has been blamed for a wave of sectarian violence. Previous Islamic State videos have shown the beheadings of two American journalists and a British aid worker.
Britain, a close U.S. ally, recently announced it was joining a U.S.-led air assault against the Sunni militant group's targets in Iraq, after weeks of weighing its options.
Henning, a 47-year-old taxi driver from Salford in northern England, was part of an aid convoy taking medical supplies to a hospital in northwest Syria in December last year when it was stopped by gunmen and he was abducted.
Muslim groups across Britain, including some organizations that are highly critical of British foreign policy and blame Western interference for fanning the recent crisis in Iraq and Syria, had called in vain for his release.
His wife Barbara had called him a "a peaceful, selfless man" and appealed to Islamic State to release him.
Shuja Shafi, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, the UK's largest Islamic umbrella group, called the purported beheading of Henning "a despicable and offensive act."
"It is quite clear that the murderers of Alan Henning have no regard for Islam, or for the Muslims around the world who pleaded for his life," Shafi said.
Islamic State is believed to be holding fewer than 10 Western hostages in Syria. The remaining hostages include British journalist John Cantlie, who has appeared in three Islamic State videos.
Kurds call to arms as Islamic State closes in on Syrian town
(Reuters) - The main Kurdish armed group in Syria called on its kinsmen across the region to help it stop a massacre in the Syrian town of Kobani as Islamic State militants armed with tanks edged closer on its outskirts and pummelled it with artillery fire.
Islamic State's battlefield gains in recent months have come as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces have focussed on other rebel groups. On Friday the army advanced on the city of Aleppo further west, threatening rebel supply lines in a potentially major reversal.
U.S.-led forces have been bombing Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq but the action has done little to stop the group's advance in northern Syria towards the Turkish border, piling pressure on Ankara to intervene.
Canada said it would send fighter jets and other aircraft to take part in the U.S.-led strikes on Islamic State in Iraq for a period of up to six months.
Turkey said it would do what it could to prevent Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish town just over its southern border, from falling into Islamic State. It has stopped short of committing to any direct military intervention and Syria warned on Friday against any Turkish "aggression" on its territory.
A statement issued by the YPG, the main Kurdish armed group, vowed "never ending" resistance to Islamic State in its advance on Kobani. "Every street and house will be a grave for them."
"Our call to all the young men and women of Kurdistan ... is to come to be part of this resistance."
DESTRUCTION
Esmat al-Sheikh, head of the Kurdish forces defending Kobani, said the distance between his fighters and the insurgents was now less than one kilometre (half a mile).
"We are in a small, besieged area. No reinforcements reached us and the borders are closed," he told Reuters by phone. "My expectation is for general killing, massacres and destruction."
Islamic State has carved out swathes of eastern Syria and western Iraq in a drive to create a caliphate between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers. Kobani's resistance has prevented it from consolidating territory across Syria's north.
Fighting continued after the sun set, with artillery strikes on residential areas east and southwest of Kobani's centre. Kurds returned fire, and red tracer bullets targeting Islamic State strongholds east of the city flew over rooftops, a Reuters correspondent on the Turkish side of the border said.
Remzi Savas, 53, smoked a cigarette and listened to the gunfire over the border.
"My son is over there, he crossed through a minefield to get there. He is just 14. There are many children fighting for the YPG, we can't hold them back. They think they'll lose everything if Kobani falls."
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 80 shells had hit the town, known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, and there were heavy clashes in the east and southeast.
The fighting has driven Kurds from across northern Syria from their homes across the border into Turkey.
"It's a dramatic humanitarian tragedy as we have all witnessed," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in Geneva. "It's the largest single outflow of Syrians in a few days, 160,000 people."
ALEPPO ENCIRCLED
Further west, a Syrian army advance threatened to take the last main rebel supply route leading into Aleppo from the north and reverse two years of gains by Assad's foes.
"They are going to encircle Aleppo," said Abu Abdo Salabman, a member of the political office of the Mujahideen Army, a rebel group viewed as part of the moderate opposition to Assad.
"They are bombing us non-stop," said Salabman, who was not using his real name. "They are marching on us and the regime air force is non-stop."
The Syrian army has taken control of three villages, state television said, in a campaign by Assad's forces that could encircle insurgents in the city.
Although there are smaller, more indirect routes into Aleppo, taking the northern road would also allow the army to besiege areas of the city which fell to insurgents in 2011, a tactic it used to retake Homs city in May.
Assad's forces are fighting a mixture of rebel groups in Syria, including Islamic State but also a mix of western-backed forces in a conflict which has killed nearly 200,000 people.
This year, Washington and its allies have shifted focus in Syria from battling Assad to combating Islamic State.
The U.S. military said coalition forces carried out strikes in Iraq and Syria overnight on Thursday. In Syria they destroyed an Islamic State garrison, two of the militant group's tanks and hit two mobile oil refineries and a training camp.
In Iraq, government forces recaptured the town of Dhuluiya, about 70 km (45 miles) north of Baghdad, which had been under siege by Islamic State.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called on Iraq's bickering political factions to unite. In a message to mark the Muslim holy feast of Eid, he said the battle against Islamic State would continue to the end.
TURKISH DILEMMA
Village by village, Kurdish forces in northern Iraq have regained around half the territory they gave up in August when Islamic State militants tore through their defences in the northwest, prompting the United States to launch air strikes in September, its first since 2011.
Turkey, however, insists the air strikes alone will not contain the Islamic State threat, and wants simultaneous action to be taken against Assad's government, including the creation of a no-fly zone on the Syrian side of the border.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey would do what it could to prevent Kobani from falling to the militants but stopped short of committing to the sort of intervention Kurds have called for.
"We wouldn't want Kobani to fall. We'll do whatever we can to prevent this from happening," Davutoglu said in a discussion with journalists broadcast on the A Haber television station.
Parliament gave the government powers on Thursday to order cross-border military incursions against Islamic State, and to allow forces of the U.S.-led foreign coalition to launch similar operations from Turkish territory.
Syria said Turkey's decision was an act of aggression which could have "catastrophic consequences".
But Davutoglu appeared to pull back from any suggestion that Turkey was planning a military incursion, saying this could drag Ankara into a wider conflict along its 900 km (560-mile) border.
Ankara fears intervention could worsen security on its border by strengthening Assad and bolstering Kurdish fighters linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.
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