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Syria Kurds Weather IS Assault as They Await Iraq Help
[AnNahar] Kurdish fighters in the battleground Syrian town of Kobane weathered an onslaught by Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group hard boyz on Tuesday as they awaited promised reinforcements. The Kurdish militia faced a fierce attack by IS fighters, including jacket wallahs, late on Monday, that appeared aimed at cutting off the border with Turkey before any reinforcements could arrive, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Fighting continued on Tuesday with exchanges between IS forces in the east of the town and Kurds in the west and there were reports of an kaboom, probably a boom-mobile, the Britannia-based monitoring group said. Kobane has become a crucial symbolic battleground in the war against IS, which is fighting to extend areas under its control in Iraq and Syria where it has declared an Islamic "caliphate". Ankara announced on Monday that it would help Kurdish forces from Iraq to relieve Kobane's beleaguered defenders, in a major shift of policy that was swiftly welcomed by Washington. Iraqi Kurdish officials have said they will provide the training, although any forces sent will be Syrian Kurds. Coalition aircraft carried out further strikes during the night, said the Observatory, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria. IS lost at least five of its hard boyz to air strikes on Monday and a further 12 in ground fighting, including two suicide bombers, the monitoring group said. Five Kurdish fighters were also killed. A senior U.S. administration official said Monday's airdrop was in recognition of the "impressive" resistance put up by the Kurds and the losses they were inflicting on IS. Posted by: trailing wife 2014-10-22 |
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