The Islamic State Thread

KURDS STRUGGLE TO DEFEND BESIEGED SYRIAN TOWN

Kurdish militiamen are putting up a fierce fight to defend a Syrian town near the border with Turkey but are struggling to repel the Islamic State group, which is advancing and pushing in from two sides, Syrian activists and Kurdish officials said Saturday.

The battle for Kobani is still raging despite more than two weeks of airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition targeting the militants in and around the town. The strikes, which are aimed at rolling back the militants' gains, appear to have done little to blunt their onslaught on Kobani, which began in mid-September.

Just outside the Turkish town of Suruc, across the border from Kobani, some 200 people gathered at a cemetery Saturday to bury two Kurdish fighters, a woman and a man, who died in the fighting.

The two fighters- 22-year-old Mujaid Ahmed and 20-year-old Fatma Sheikh Hassan - were laid to rest in two simple wooden coffins. Men took turns heaving shovels of dirt to cover the coffins as women wept. One woman kneeled over a freshly dug grave, tears streaming down her nose as others tried to console her.

Then, the crowd - which included Kurds from Suruc and others from Kobani - broke into song, ending the burial ceremony with chants of "Long live Kobani!"

The Syrian Kurdish border town is the latest focus of the Islamic State group, which has rampaged across northern Syria and western and northern Iraq since the summer, swallowing up large chunks of territory and imposing its reign of terror.

Capturing Kobani, also known by its Arabic name of Ayn Arab, would give the group a direct link between its positions in the Syrian province of Aleppo and its stronghold of Raqqa, to the east. It would also crush a lingering pocket of Kurdish resistance and give the group full control of a large stretch of the Turkish-Syrian border.

Kurds are determined not to allow Kobani to fall and are fighting zealously, but they have not been able to curb advances by the more heavily armed extremists.

On Friday, the militants seized the so-called Kurdish security quarter -an area in the town's east where Kurdish militiamen maintain security buildings and where the police station, municipality and other local government offices are located.

A senior Kurdish official, Ismet Sheikh Hasan, said clashes were focused in the southern and eastern parts of the town. He said the situation was dire and appealed for international help.

"We are defending (the town) but ... we have only simple weapons and they (militants) have heavy weapons," he said in a call Friday night with The Associated Press. "They are not besieged and can move easily."

A video posted online Saturday by a group affiliated with the militants showed what it said were Islamic State group militants fanning out in some streets of Kobani amid heavy gunfire. Militants are shown firing rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns. The video appeared to be consistent with AP reporting on the battles.

U.S. Central Command said it conducted airstrikes north and south of Kobani over Friday and Saturday using fighter jets and bombers.

Hasan said U.S.-led airstrikes were not effective, and urged the international community and the United Nations to intervene, predicting a massacre if the militants seize control of Kobani. He also appealed to Turkey to open a corridor that would allow remaining civilians to leave Kobani and arms to enter the town.

Since the Islamic State group's offensive on Kobani started Sept. 16, more than 500 people have been killed, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday. The group, which collects its information from an elaborate network of activists on the ground, said it has documented 20 Kurdish civilians among them, as well as nearly 300 Islamic State militants and 225 Kurdish fighters.

The fighting also has forced more than 200,000 people to flee across the border into Turkey.

Hasan said the Turks were now allowing only wounded civilians to cross the border.

Rami Abdurrahman, the Observatory's chief, said the town's Kurdish fighters "are putting up a fierce fight" but are simply outgunned by the militants.


Source : Sapa-AP /mr
Date : 11 Oct 2014 18:07
 
IS JIHADISTS EXECUTE FOUR WOMEN IN NORTHERN IRAQ

The Islamic State group has executed at least four women, including two doctors and a politician, in their northern Iraq strongholds this month, relatives and rights activists said on Saturday.

In the IS hub of Mosul, the jihadists executed three women on Wednesday including two doctors, Hanaa Edwar, a human rights activist who heads the Al-Amal organisation, said.

A medical source in Mosul confirmed their deaths and named the two doctors as Maha Sabhan and Lamia Ismail. The third woman was a law graduate.

On October 5, Iman Mohammed Yunus, a former Sunni parliamentarian from the Iraq Turkmen Front in the city of Tal Afar, farther west towards the Syrian border, was also executed.

"They took her from her home last month and called her family this week to say that she had been executed," said Ali al-Bayati, who runs a foundation supporting the rights of Iraq's Turkmen minority.

"Then they dumped her body in a water well outside Tal Afar," he said.

According to Edwar, who confirmed Yunus' execution, at least four other women were executed by IS militants in the Mosul area in recent weeks.

Among them were a former candidate for the local council and an academic.

"Women are easy targets for them. Many of the rights activists from Mosul ran away but some of the women among them had to stay with their children," Edwar said.

IS militants have controlled Mosul since June 10, the second day of a major offensive that saw jihadist fighters seize swathes of land in five Iraqi provinces.

They have used the city, Iraq's second largest, as a de facto capital for the Iraqi half of the "caliphate" which their leadership proclaimed in June and also includes large parts of Syria.

"After going after the ethnic and religious minorities, they are now hunting down Sunni members of civil society groups and anyone remotely connected with the government," Edwar said.

She said IS was probably trying to sow maximum fear among the population by openly targeting women.

"When you abduct and kill women, you are really spreading horror," she said.

On September 22, IS executed a women's rights activist, Samira Saleh al-Nuaimi, reportedly because she had condemned the demolition of heritage sites by IS on social media.

Edwar also said two men, a judge and a deputy prosecutor, had been executed over the past two weeks.

A source at the Mosul morgue confirmed that their bodies had been brought in earlier this month.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mm
Date : 11 Oct 2014 16:52
 
14 KILLED AS VIOLENCE RAGES NORTH OF BAGHDAD

Friendly fire on a military ambulance, a suicide attack at a market and a booby trap killed at least 14 people in a fresh day of violence north of Baghdad Saturday.

Four soldiers were killed near Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, when Shiite militiamen allied to the government sprayed gunfire on their ambulance, police said.

"The four soldiers were riding in an army ambulance when members of the popular brigades shot their vehicle on the main road near Mansuriyah, killing all of them," a police colonel said.

"They opened fire because they thought (the soldiers) were Islamic State fighters using the ambulance as a trick to attack their position," the officer said.

A doctor at Baquba general hospital confirmed the toll.

The jihadist group holds huge quantities of vehicles, weapons and uniforms looted from the army, making it difficult for pro-government forces to tell them apart from their own camp.

In Meshahda, just over 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the capital, a bomber set off his suicide vest in the middle of a market, killing at least seven people and wounding 25.

"There were at least two women among the dead, and several women and children among the wounded," a police colonel from neighbouring Tarmiyah told AFP.

A doctor at Tarmiyah hospital confirmed the casualty figures.

Near Tikrit, the hometown of executed former president Saddam Hussein which is under IS control, three Shiite militiamen were killed in the explosion of a booby-trapped house.

According to an army captain and a doctor at Samarra hospital, the blast in Zalayah village also wounded nine people.

IS fighters rig roads and homes before withdrawing from areas they control, making it difficult for the army and allied groups to gain ground even after a military victory.


Source : Sapa-AFP /kn
Date : 11 Oct 2014 14:54
 
HUNDREDS IN MEMORIAL FOR BRITISH HOSTAGE KILLED BY IS

Hundreds gathered for a memorial service for Alan Henning, the British hostage beheaded by Islamic State jihadists, celebrating the aid volunteer as a hero on Sunday.

Friends and family, including his widow Barbara and teenage children Adam and Lucy, attended the ceremony at the Muslim Heritage Centre in Manchester, northwest England.

The 47-year-old taxi driver had travelled to Syria to help Muslim colleagues deliver aid in a convoy. He was kidnapped shortly after crossing the border and his murder was claimed by the IS group in a graphic video released on October 3.

Majid Freeman, from the English city of Leicester, travelled to Syria with Henning on two aid convoys, including the December trip on which he was captured.

"He went to Syria to help at a time when the whole international community had abandoned them," Freeman told well-wishers at the memorial service.

He recalled an incident when Henning had declined to join others on the convoy in paying for a hotel for the night, instead sleeping in an ambulance.

"I asked Alan why and he said 'I'm going to stay in my ambulance, I'm going to save that money and give that money to the people in Syria'. That is the kind of person Alan was," Freeman said.

His murder outraged the Muslim community in Britain, moderates and hardliners alike.

A memorial fund for his family has raised more than £25,000 ($40,000, 32,000 euros).

Henning was the fourth Western hostage murdered by IS militants since August.


Source : Sapa-AFP /gq
Date : 12 Oct 2014 23:25
 
KURDS THWART IS IN KOBANE, TURKEY BOOSTS INVOLVEMENT
by Burak Akinci with Rana Moussaoui in Beirut

Attacking Islamic State jihadists met firm Kurdish resistance in the Syrian battleground town of Kobane on Sunday, as neighbouring Turkey heeded pressure to intervene and handed the US access to its air bases.

In Iraq however, Islamic State (IS) fighters have government forces under strong pressure, and a roadside bomb killed the police chief in Anbar province between Baghdad and the Syrian border.

Farther north, around Iraq's key oil refinery town of Baiji, the army and Sunni Arab tribal allies came under fresh IS attack, prompting a first resupply operation by coalition aircraft.

In Kobane, on Syria's border with Turkey, a pall of black smoke hung over the strategic town as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported heavy jihadist losses.

IS poured in reinforcements and fired at least 11 rocket-propelled grenades into the town centre, said the Britain-based monitoring group.

The Kurds managed to advance 50 metres (yards) towards their headquarters, two days after the jihadists captured it, but failed to deliver a knockout blow.

"They (IS) are sending fighters without much combat experience," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Since proclaiming a "caliphate" straddling parts of Iraq and Syria in June, the militants have seized swathes of territory and earned worldwide infamy for atrocities -- often videotaped and posted on the Internet.

Hundreds gathered Sunday in Manchester, in northwest England, for a memorial service for Alan Henning, the British hostage who was kidnapped and beheaded after travelling to Syria to help deliver aid in a convoy.

Henning's murder -- the fourth of a Western hostage since August -- has outraged the Muslim community in Britain, moderates and hardliners alike, and he was hailed as a hero at the ceremony.

Turkey, which has so far been reluctant to get involved in the fighting, has faced international pressure to step in to defend Kobane.

A senior US defence official said it has now granted the United States access to its air bases for the campaign, including a key installation near the Syrian border.

"Details of usage are still being worked out," the official told AFP.

In southern Turkey, US crews have long operated out of Incirlik Air Base and about 1,500 air force personnel are stationed there. US aircraft bombing IS militants are reportedly flying out of air bases in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.

In a telephone call with Turkish Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz, Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel thanked Turkey for its "willingness to contribute to coalition efforts, to include hosting and conducting training for Syrian opposition members," his spokesman said.

The UN has warned that hundreds of mainly elderly civilians in the centre of Kobane and thousands more on the outskirts are all at grave risk if the jihadists sever the sole escape route to the border.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has urged action to prevent a "massacre" there.

The US military said it and its Saudi and Emirati allies conducted four air strikes in Syria Sunday, all but one in Kobane. Despite that, Pentagon officials have said there is a limit to what they can do without ground forces.

But the top US officer said American military advisers were likely to take a more direct role once Iraqi forces are ready to fight to retake the country's second city Mosul, which IS overran in June.

"My instinct at this point is that will require a different kind of advising and assisting because of the complexity of that fight," General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on ABC's "This Week".

Despite deep concern about the plight of Kobane, Washington has vowed to stick to its overall strategy of prioritising the Iraq campaign.

Speaking in Cairo at a Gaza donors' reconstruction conference, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the Iraqis themselves will have to succeed on the ground to win back their country.

"Ultimately it is Iraqis who will have to take back Iraq. It is Iraqis in Anbar who will have to fight for Anbar."

Washington's strategy has seen it and its partners launch hundreds of air strikes in Iraq in support of Kurdish forces in the north and embattled federal government troops farther south.

Pro-government forces have come under particularly heavy pressure around the key oil refinery at Baiji, south of Mosul.

US defence officials have expressed mounting concern about the tenuous position of government troops, particularly in the Sunni Arab heartland north and west of Baghdad.

With federal troops on the back foot, Washington and its allies have relied heavily on Iraqi Kurdish forces in the fightback, but they too have come under pressure.

Three suicide car bombings in a Kurdish-controlled town north of Baghdad killed at least 40 people Sunday, mostly Kurdish forces veterans volunteering to re-enlist.

IS said on Twitter the bombers were German, Saudi and Turkish.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mjs
Date : 13 Oct 2014 05:29
 
KURDISH FIGHTERS CLAIM ADVANCES IN KOBANE

Kurdish fighters have gained ground in their defence of the besieged town of Kobane against Islamic State jihadists, a senior Kurdish official and a monitoring group said Monday.

Idris Nassan, deputy foreign affairs minister in the Kobane administration, told dpa that, following fierce clashes overnight, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) managed to advance into a commercial zone north-east of the city.

He added that the Kurdish fighters were also able to advance into an area south-west of Kobane "where they managed to push away Islamic State fighters from the area."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the YPG captured two Islamic State positions in the south of the town, killing at least 13 jihadists.

The YPG claimed its forces had killed 138 jihadists in the last 48 hours in the city, which lies on Syria's border with Turkey.

A YPG statement, carried late Sunday by the Hawar News Agency, which has close ties to the force, stated that Islamic State fighters on the southern front used tanks, rockets and artillery "to attack YPG trenches, but they failed and our fighters repelled them, leaving 17 terrorists killed."

The reported advances by the Kurdish fighters came following intensified overnight airstrikes by the US-led coalition upon areas east and south of Kobane, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The US Joint Chiefs of Staff were due to host a meeting later Monday with defence ministers of the coalition against the Islamic State to discuss further strategy.

As the fighting continued, Syrian Kurdish leaders were due to meet in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan for talks chaired by Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani on bridging the gap between their two main factions.

The Kurdish National Council (KNC), which is close to Barzani, has accused the YPG and the linked Democratic Union Party (PYD) of putting Kobane and other areas at risk by monopolizing power and keeping KNC fighters out of Syrian Kurdish areas.

The PYD rejects the charges, saying the YPG is not a party militia but the official military of the autonomous cantons that have been established in Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria.

Fighting in Kobane has forced more than 200,000 people to flee to Turkey, according to the government in Ankara. The entire region has been depopulated of its Kurdish residents.

Elsewhere in Syria, 12 loud explosions were heard after allied airstrikes in and around the Islamic State's stronghold of al-Raqqa in north-eastern Syria, the Observatory said.

The strikes hit targets in al-Raqqa city as well as nearby Syrian military bases captured by the Islamic State in recent months, the watchdog added.


Source : Sapa-dpa /ar
Date : 13 Oct 2014 10:29
 
TURKEY AGREES TO US BASE USE FOR ANTI-IS FIGHT
by Burak Akinci

Turkey agreed to let Washington use its air bases for the campaign against Islamic State jihadists as Kurdish fighters kept up their battle Monday to defend the flashpoint town of Kobane.

Under a deal announced by US officials, Turkey will also host training for "moderate" Syrian rebels, in the hopes of finally creating a force capable of tackling IS on the ground.

In Kobane, Kurdish militia were reported to have launched a counter-offensive against IS jihadists overnight but were battling to defend a key post on Turkey's border with Syria.

IS fighters were also putting strong pressure on pro-government forces in Iraq, with concern over the Anbar province and the key oil refinery of Baiji.

With the jihadists advancing on its doorstep, NATO member Turkey has come under intense pressure to take action as part of a US-led coalition that has been carrying out air strikes in Syria and Iraq.

US officials said that Turkey had agreed to let Washington use its bases for the air campaign, including the key Incirlik Air Base near the border with Syria.

Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said the agreement included "hosting and conducting training for Syrian opposition members" in Turkey, noting that Ankara would welcome a US Command team next week to "develop a training regimen".

US military planners have repeatedly warned that the air campaign alone will not be enough to defeat IS, which in June declared an Islamic "caliphate" in the large parts of Syria and Iraq under its control.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Sunday called for military backing for Syria's "moderate opposition" to create a "third force" in the war-torn country to take on the Damascus regime as well as IS militants.

In Kobane, Kurdish forces launched a counter-offensive to retake key areas seized by the jihadists last week, including their captured headquarters.

Kurdish fighters pushed IS militants back from two positions in the south Kobane overnight, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Coalition air strikes hit five IS positions in the south and east of the town, the Britain-based monitoring group said.

An AFP reporter just across the border in Turkey said fighting was concentrated early Monday around a border post outside the town whose capture would cut it off from the outside world.

Turkey had moved reinforcements to the border including more tanks and self-propelled artillery, the reporter said.

Kobane has become a highly visible symbol of resistance to IS and its fall would give the jihadists control of a long stretch of the Turkey-Syria border.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Sunday called for urgent action to defend the town, saying thousands faced a potential "massacre" if it fell.

But concern has also been growing over Iraq, where IS fighters have been threatening to seize more territory.

Iraqi forces are reported to be under intensifying pressure in Anbar province between Baghdad and the Syrian border, where a roadside bomb killed the police chief on Sunday.

Pro-government forces have also been in trouble around Baiji oil refinery south of IS-held Mosul, where US military aircraft on Sunday for the first time dropped supplies including food, water and ammunition to Iraqi troops.

Washington has insisted it will not send ground troops back to Iraq and Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday the Iraqis themselves will have to succeed on the ground to win back their country.

"Ultimately it is Iraqis who will have to take back Iraq. It is Iraqis in Anbar who will have to fight for Anbar," he said in Cairo.

IS has committed widespread atrocities in areas under its control, including attacks on civilians, mass executions, beheadings and enslaving women.

It has also murdered four Western hostages in on-camera beheadings, and on Sunday hundreds gathered in northwest England for a memorial service for British aid volunteer Alan Henning.

The 47-year-old taxi driver had travelled to Syria to help Muslim colleagues deliver aid in a convoy, but was kidnapped and his murder claimed by IS in a graphic video released on October 3.

His killing outraged the Muslim community in Britain and he was hailed at Sunday's ceremony as hero who "went to Syria to help at a time when the whole international community had abandoned them".

More than 180,000 people have been killed in Syria since an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime began in 2011, evolving into a several-sided civil war that has drawn thousands of jihadists from overseas.


Source : Sapa-AFP /ar
Date : 13 Oct 2014 10:58
 
KURDS, JIHADISTS IN HEAVY FIGHTING NEAR TURKISH BORDER: AFP

(PICTURE)

Heavy fighting broke out on Monday between Islamist jihadists and Kurdish fighters close to the Turkish border just north of the besieged Syrian town of Kobane, an AFP correspondent reported.

The clashes threatened to cut all access from Kobane to the Turkish border and block the passage which which has so far allowed some 200,000 refugees from the Kobane area to find refuge in Turkey.

Clashes with automatic gunfire and mortar fire were taking place an an area less than one kilometre (half a mile) from the barbed wire fence that marks the border between Syria and Turkey, the correspondent on the Turkish side of the border reported.

Meanwhile the US-led international coalition carried out at least two new air strikes against positions held by Islamic State militants (IS) in and around Kobane.

The first took place a little before 0430 GMT, witnesses said, while the second in the late morning struck at the heart of Kobane and sent a huge plume of smoke into the sky, the correspondent reported.

Turkey has so far not intervened in the battle for Kobane despite building up its military presence on the border. Over the last day, new Turkish tanks and artillery arrived with their weaponry pointing towards Kobane.

US officials said at the weekend that Turkey agreed to let American forces use its air bases for the campaign against the jihadists. But this has yet to be confirmed by Ankara.


Source : Sapa-AFP /ar
Date : 13 Oct 2014 11:34
 
ICELAND SHUTS DOWN 'ISLAMIC STATE' WEBSITE

Iceland has closed down a website believed to be used by the jihadist organisation Islamic State, according to the authority responsible for the country's Internet domain name ".is".

"ISNIC has suspended domains that were used for the website of a known terrorist organisation," the Internet in Iceland Inc authority said in a statement late Sunday.

The site "khilafah.is" -- which ISNIC said was run by a group calling itself Islamic State -- was traced back to a web hosting company on the island nation at the weekend and was believed to have been online since mid-September.

Several other websites with the name "khilafah" -- or caliphate, an Islamic state which IS militants claim to have established in parts of Iraq and Syria -- already exist in other countries with other domain name endings, including ".com" and ".org" and without clear links to the group.

ISNIC head Jens Petur Jensen told public broadcaster RUV that it was the first time Iceland has closed down a domain name and that the ".is" ending seemed to have appealed to the group calling itself Islamic State.

In the future, he said, Arabic-language websites using the country's domain would be monitored more closely.

Some Icelandic media reports suggested that it could prove controversial to close down the site due to Iceland's liberal freedom of speech laws but the domain name authority said in a statement that websites have to be "within the limits of Icelandic law".

"It is impossible that this organisation uses an Icelandic domain and it's very unpleasant that they call themselves IS and use the Icelandic domain," Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson told the daily Morgunbladid.

"I asked the ministry to find out how we can close the site down and prevent it opening again under an Icelandic domain," he said.

This has nothing to do with freedom of expression, but criminal and monstrous conduct. We have to be able to shut that down."


Source : Sapa-AFP /ar
Date : 13 Oct 2014 12:23
 
TURKEY BOMBS KURDISH REBEL TARGETS IN SOUTHEAST

Turkish jets bombed targets of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in southeast Turkey, officials said Tuesday, the first strikes on the outlawed group since a 2013 ceasefire amid growing concern about the peace process.

Turkish F-16 jets dropped bombs late Monday on PKK targets in the village of Daglica in the Kurdish-majority Hakkari province near the border with Iraq, a security source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

In a separate incident also Monday, Turkish attack helicopters struck at PKK targets around the village of Geyiksuyu in the Tunceli province of eastern Turkey following raids by the PKK.

The fierce clashes between Islamic State (IS) insurgents and Kurdish forces in the key Syrian town of Kobane have shaken Turkey's fragile peace process with the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and much of the international community.

Frustrated with Turkey's lack of action to stop the IS advance in northern Syria on fellow Kurds, Turkey's Kurdish community has taken to the streets in several cities in the southeast over the past week, with scores killed in deadly clashes.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the unrest on the "dark forces" seeking to sabotage the delicate peace process with the PKK to end 30 years of violence that has claimed at least 40,000 lives.

The air strikes came one day before the October 15 deadline given by the PKK's overall leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence in an island prison on the sea of Marmara, for a roadmap to salvage the flagging peace process.

But Nihat Ali Ozcan, security analyst at Ankara-based TEPAV think tank, said while the peace process could well be "dead in the water" one day, it would not be over just because of these latest incidents.

"It is not an easy task to manage the peace process," he said.

Turkey, a NATO member, has tightened security on its volatile border after the escalating fighting in Kobane sparked the exodus of 200,000 refugees.

Kurds say they do not want Turkish troops in Kobane but want Turkey to allow its territory to be used for passing weapons to Kurdish fighters defending the key Syrian town, an idea Ankara has so far rejected.

One of the PKK chiefs said on Saturday it had called all its fighters back to Turkey, after the violent protests over the government's policy on Syria.

Cemil Bayik, one of the founders of the PKK, also warned that the peace process was in danger of collapse and attacks could resume after the deadly unrest.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, in a speech to his ruling party lawmakers Tuesday, made no mention of the air strikes but said the government was still committed to making peace with the Kurds.

"The peace process is not linked to Kobane. It's not linked to any development that takes place outside our borders," Davutoglu said.

Ozcan said the peace process could die in time but not now.

"The PKK and the government are making moves to show muscle to each other," he said.

The PKK had been launching gun attacks on the police station in Daglica since Saturday because of the troubles in Kobane, security sources said.

The army has yet to release details on the air strikes but said in a statement on Saturday that "terrorists from the separatist terrorist organisation opened fire on our base in the Daglica region".

"We responded spontaneously in the toughest possible way," it said. In line with official practice, the Turkish army never refers to the PKK by name.

In the second incident, Turkey's security forces and Kurdish rebels clashed in three different spots in the village of Geyiksuyu after the PKK attempted to infiltrate into military bases, local media reported.

After the rebel withdrawal, two Kobra helicopters conducted reconnaissance flights and bombed several PKK targets, according to the reports.


Source : Sapa-AFP /kn
Date : 14 Oct 2014 12:57
 
TURKEY ACCUSES PYD OF 'TORTURING' KOBANE KURDS

Turkey on Tuesday accused the main Kurdish political party in Syria of "torturing" Syrian Kurds who fled to Turkey when Islamic State jihadists launched their assault on the border town of Kobane.

Turkey has so far taken in some 200,000 refugees from Kobane just a few kilometres (miles) from the border with Syria where Kurdish fighters have been battling the jihadists to defend the town.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the refugees had fled to Turkey "to escape pressure" from the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is affiliated with Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

"Our brothers came here to escape pressure from PYD. They put a great deal of pressure on those in Kobane who don't share their opinion," Davutoglu told lawmakers from his Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

"Just ask those in the region how PYD has been torturing people in Kobane. I'm calling on our brothers in the region to raise their voices," Davutoglu said.

"Where were you when the PYD was oppressing some of the Kurds?" he asked the international community.

Davutoglu give further details on the torture allegations. Before the IS advance, the PYD enjoyed control over much of Kurdish-populated northern Syria.

Ankara has previously been reluctant to develop links with the PYD because of its close links with the PKK, which has waged a 30-year insurgency for self-rule in southeastern Turkey.

It has reportedly asked the PYD to join forces with rebels battling the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, whom Ankara wants to see removed from power.

In an interview with AFP last week, PYD leader Saleh Muslim called on Turkey to allow its territory to be used for passing weapons to Kurdish fighters defending Kobane.

But Turkey is reluctant to arm Kurds and intervene militarily against the jihadists fearing that military action around Kobane could bolster Assad and strengthen Kurdish militants linked to the PKK.

"It's not about Kobane. It's about piling pressure on Turkey through Kobane," Davutoglu said.

"But Turkey has no appetite for adventures just because some people wanted unless the international community does its part to find an integrated solution (for Kobane)," Davutoglu said.


Source : Sapa-AFP /kn
Date : 14 Oct 2014 13:40
 
HOLLANDE URGES 'ALL COUNTRIES CONCERNED' TO ARM THOSE FIGHTING IS

French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday urged "all countries concerned", including those not in the coalition fighting Islamic State, to provide weapons to those battling the jihadists.

"I am launching an appeal here, beyond the coalition, to all countries concerned to give this opposition the support they expect from us, the means they need to fight against terrorism," Hollande said.


Source : Sapa-AFP /kn
Date : 14 Oct 2014 13:35
 
REPORT: TURKISH JETS HIT KURDISH REBEL TARGETS

Turkish warplanes have struck suspected Kurdish rebel positions in southeastern Turkey, media reports said Tuesday, the first major airstrikes against the rebel group since peace talks began two years ago to end a 30-year insurgency.

The attack comes amid heightened tensions in Turkey over Islamic State militants' advance on the Syrian town of Kobani. Kurds in Turkey accuse the government of standing idly by while Syrian Kurds are being slaughtered in the besieged town across the border.

The return to violence between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, illustrates the complicated position Turkey faces as it negotiates its role with the U.S. and NATO allies in the anti-Islamic State coalition. The PKK and affiliated groups, including fighters defending Kobani, are an important force on the ground in both Iraq and Syria fighting the Islamic State group. But Turkey still views the PKK as a dangerous terrorist adversary.

Turkish media had varying accounts of the strikes, but the private Dogan news agency said Turkish F-16 jets hit PKK targets in Hakkari province, near the border with Iraq on Monday.

A military statement said Tuesday that the rebels attacked an outpost in Hakkari with long barreled weapons on Monday, prompting the military to retaliate using fire support vehicles. The statement made no mention of any airstrikes. An earlier statement said the armed forces had responded "in the strongest way" to a rebel attack.

Firat news agency, which is close to the PKK, confirmed the airstrikes, saying at least five locations around Hakkari were targeted. The agency had a different version of events, however, saying that the military had attacked rebel fighters in the region with artillery for three days, forcing the PKK to retaliate by firing at a military unit.

Kurdish leaders, including jailed PKK chief Abdullah Ocalan, have warned that the fall of Kobani will end the peace process, while PKK commander Cemal Bayik has been quoted in Turkish media as saying that some fighters who had withdrawn from Turkish territory as part of the peace efforts have now returned to Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused Kurds of using the peace process as a means to "blackmail" Turkey into taking action to defend Kobani, but said his government is determined to press ahead with efforts to bring about peace.

More than 30 people were killed last week as Kurds, angered at what they said was Turkish impediment to efforts to defend Kobani, clashed with police and supporters of an Islamist group in cities across Turkey. At least two police officers were among the dead, according to Turkish authorities.

Turkey has said it won't join the fight against the Islamic State militants unless the U.S.-led coalition also targets Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

The PKK has fought Turkey for autonomy for Kurds in a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 1984.

Kurds, who make up an estimated 20 percent of Turkey's 75 million people, have faced decades of discrimination, including restrictions on the use of their language.


Source : Sapa-AP /kn
Date : 14 Oct 2014 14:51
 
JIHADISTS PRESS GAINS IN SYRIA, IRAQ AS US WARNS OF LONG FIGHT
by Burak Akinci with Rana Moussaoui in Beirut

Jihadists pushed to seize Syria's Kobane and an Iraqi town close to Baghdad on Wednesday as Washington warned of a long fight against the steadily advancing Islamic State group.

In the town of Kobane on the Turkish border, the jihadists have been holding out in fighting with Kurdish militia despite stepped-up US-led air strikes, and calls have been growing for Turkey to take action.

In Iraq, IS militants were closing on the town of Amriyat al-Fallujah, one of the last still controlled by the government in the troubled Anbar province and only 35 kilometres (20 miles) from Baghdad.

With US military officials warning that IS had the "tactical momentum", President Barack Obama told Western and Arab allies fighting IS that they are facing a "long-term campaign".

"There are not quick fixes involved. We're still at the early stages," Obama said in Washington after meeting senior commanders from more than 20 allies involved in the campaign.

"As with any military effort, there will be days of progress and there are going to be periods of setback," he added.

Obama expressed special concern for Kobane, which has become a crucial symbolic battleground in the fight against IS, and about halting the IS advance in Iraq's western Anbar province.

Fighting continued to rage for Kobane early Wednesday, with clashes concentrated in the east of the town where IS fighters established a stronghold after piercing its defences last week.

An AFP reporter across the border in Turkey reported at least four fresh US-led air strikes early Wednesday, after the coalition said it had hit the jihadists in Kobane with 21 raids on Monday and Tuesday alone.

A monitoring group said overnight fighting had concentrated on the former Kurdish military headquarters in northern Kobane which IS seized on Friday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four coalition strikes had hit IS positions during the night, including at the headquarters.

Turkey has stationed troops, tanks and artillery along the border -- in some cases only a few hundred yards from the fighting -- but has not intervened.

NATO member Turkey also has yet to allow US jets to mount attacks from its territory and complicated issues Tuesday by bombing Kurdish rebel targets in the southeast of the country.

In Iraq, security forces warned late Tuesday their last position in Anbar province at the town of Amriyat al-Fallujah was under heavy pressure from the jihadists.

"IS has come from three directions; we are almost besieged," the town's police chief Aref al-Janabi told AFP by telephone.

"So far we are still standing," he said. "We have some support from tribal fighters, but if Amriyat falls, the battle will move to the gates of Baghdad and Karbala."

If the town were to fall, IS fighters would still have to capture a significant stretch of government-controlled land before reaching the capital.

But the loss of Anbar, where government forces have suffered a string of bruising military setbacks in recent weeks, would be a heavy blow to Iraqi ground forces battling IS.

Pro-government forces in northern Iraq have also been under pressure near the strategic Baiji oil refinery, where US aircraft Sunday dropped supplies including food, water and ammunition to Iraqi troops for the first time.

While IS fighters have not moved closer to Baghdad in recent weeks, the group has claimed responsibility for a string of deadly suicide attacks in the capital. A suicide car bombing claimed by IS on Tuesday killed a member of parliament who was also a prominent leader in the Iran-backed Badr Shiite militia.

IS has seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq, declaring a "caliphate" in June and imposing its harsh interpretation of Islamic sharia law.

The group has committed widespread atrocities, including attacks on civilians, mass executions, torture and forcing women into slavery.

US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday accused IS of "abhorrent" abuses, after the jihadists boasted of selling abducted women and children from Iraq's Yazidi minority as slaves.

"ISIL now proudly takes credit for the abduction, enslavement, rape, forced marriage and sale of several thousand... women and girls, some as young as 12 years old," Kerry said in a statement, using an alternative name for the group.

"ISIL rationalises its abhorrent treatment of these women and girls by claiming it is somehow sanctioned by religion. Wrong. Dead wrong."


Source : Sapa-AFP /kd
Date : 15 Oct 2014 11:04
 
MORE AMERICANS WANT GROUND TROOPS TO FIGHT IS: POLL

A rising number of Americans think the battle against the Islamic State group should broaden to include US ground troops, according to a poll published Wednesday.

Forty-one percent of those surveyed believe the fight should include both air strikes and ground troops, up from 34 percent in September, according to the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll.

A total of 35 percent back just airstrikes against the militant group that has seized broad swathes of land in Syria and Iraq, down from 40 percent in September, according to the poll.

The rise in those who back broadening the campaign to include soldiers on the ground stems mainly from people who make up the core of the Republican Party, the poll said.

The level among Democrats, white women and young people is basically unchanged since September.

The poll added that 55 percent of Americans do not support the way President Barack Obama is handling the fight against Islamic State jihadists. Thirty-seven percent approve.

The poll of 1,000 registered voters had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.


Source : Sapa-AFP /kd
Date : 15 Oct 2014 11:13
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X