POLITICS_ Anti-IS Coalition steps up Syria strikes

BUSINESS SPECTATOR

Anti-IS Coalition steps up Syria strikes

Dow Jones newswires 26 min ago
Politics International News

Islamic State militants stepped up their battle on Thursday to seize more neighborhoods in the Syrian city of Kobani, despite intensifying airstrikes by a US-led coalition trying to stop the radical group's advance, officials in the city and a monitoring group said.

Aided by coalition airstrikes, Kurdish militia defending Kobani said they fought off a bid Wednesday by Islamic State to seize the heart of the predominantly Kurdish city, which sits astride Syria's border with Turkey. Fierce street-to-street fighting was continuing Thursday, said Idres Nassan, an official for the Kobani regional government.

"One US strike was able to destroy a suicide bomb truck on Wednesday afternoon as it was heading to Kobani center to create chaos there," Mr Nassan said.

Still, by Thursday morning the extremist group held sway over more than a third of the city, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring network of antigovernment activists across Syria.

In recent days, US and Turkish officials have warned of Kobani's fall to Islamic State. Gen. Martin Dempsey, head of US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday he was "fearful" of the city's takeover by the group, echoing a grim assessment hours earlier by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Coalition warplanes struck eight targets around Kobani on Wednesday, destroying five Islamic State armored vehicles, a supply depot, a command center, a logistics hub and eight barracks facilities, according to the US military's Central Command, which is leading the strikes.

US and Jordanian aircraft carried out the strikes. The three-week siege of Kobani has become a focal point in the fight against the Islamic State and the plight of Kurdish populations in Syria, Iraq and Turkey. The group's fighters have seized large stretches of territory in Iraq and Syria in recent months.

Turkish officials have proposed the creation of a buffer zone along the border between Turkey and Syria aimed at protecting fleeing refugees, but the notion continues to draw tepid reaction.

Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said Thursday the idea wasn't "on the table" of any alliance discussion. He was speaking alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu at a news conference in Istanbul.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday in Washington a buffer zone was worth considering "very closely."

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby later said the zone was a topic "of continuing discussion" but wasn't "now on the table as a military option we are considering." White House press secretary Josh Earnest also said the idea wasn't "under consideration right now."

As debate continues over how aggressively to intervene in the Kobani crisis, heavily Kurdish eastern and southeastern Turkey continue to simmer in anger over what it seen as the Ankara government's inaction to stop the Islamic State onslaught on fellow Kurds.

Twenty-one people have died in two days of protests and riots in Turkey, prompting several provincial governments in southeastern Kurdish population centers to impose curfews.

While the fate of Kobani may not be of strategic importance to the US-led coalition, its capture by Islamic State would have implications in Turkey, which has a large and restive Kurdish population.

Near the top of the concerns for Turkey is the nearly 200,000 refugees who have come across the border since the siege began. The new wave threatens to worsen a crisis caused by more than 2 million refugees from the broader conflict in Iraq and Syria.

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