Ocalan Iso, deputy leader of the Kurdish forces defending the town of Kobani at the Turkish border, said more Islamic State fighters and tanks had arrived since the US-led coalition began air strikes on the group on Tuesday.
"The number of their fighters has increased, the number of their tanks has increased since the bombardment of Raqqa," Iso told Reuters by telephone.
Islamic State-controlled territory in the city and province of Raqqa was hit in the air strikes on Tuesday. He said Islamic State forces had advanced to within 8 km (5 miles) from the southern periphery of Kobani, which is also known as Ayn al-Arab - closer than they had been at any stage.
[jpost.com]
24/9/14
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Islamic fighters advance in Syria despite U.S. strikes...
ReplyDelete(Reuters) - 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.
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.
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. The French government said it would not be deterred from taking action against "an association of assassins".
A U.S. official said the leader of an al Qaeda unit called Khorasan was thought to have been killed in the first day of strikes on Syria. "We believe he is dead," he said of Khorasan chief Mohsin al-Fadhli, an associate of al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. The Pentagon said it could not confirm the death.
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.....................http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/24/us-syria-crisis-idUSKCN0HJ1H120140924?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
24/9/14