...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 a day after it appeared on the verge of seizing the town, the fate of which has emerged as a key test of whether coalition air power can roll back the holy warrior group.
The new wave of
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
groups called on the world to save the embattled town from falling into the hands of the Islamic State group, whose fighters have broken through Kurdish defenders' front lines and entered parts of the town over the last two days.
The US-led coalition has launched a series of strikes aimed at preventing the holy warrior group from seizing Kobani. An activist group said the strikes killed at least 45 Islamic State holy warriors since late Monday, forcing the group to withdraw from parts of the town.
"The
"They [militants] have retreated inside the city because of the
Over the past few days thousands of Islamic State fighters armed with heavy weapons looted from captured army bases in Iraq and Syria managed to push into parts of the town, which is located on the Syria-Turkish border and is also known by the Arabic name of Ayn Arab.
The Islamic State group has tightened the noose around Kobani since mid-September, when it launched a blitz in which it captured several nearby Kurdish villages and brought Syria's civil war yet again to Turkey's doorstep.
The US Central Command said in a statement that several
Since Monday night, the strikes have killed 45 Islamic State fighters in and around Kobani, targeting 20 separate locations and destroying at least five of their vehicles, said the Britannia-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria.
The
The group said that an Islamic State suicide kaboomer set off a truck bomb in the town's industrial neighborhood Wednesday. It had no immediate word on casualties.
Meanwhile,
...back at the precinct house, Sergeant Maloney wasn't buying it. It was just too pat. The whole thing smelled phony, kind of like a dead mackeral but without the scales...
an attack apparently carried out by Kurdish fighters inside the town destroyed a mosque minaret, which the Islamic State group had used as an outlook, activists said.
Heavy gunfire was heard from inside the town in a sign of fresh festivities Wednesday.
The advances by the Kurdish fighters came a day after Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him...
said the town was about to fall and that the aerial campaign alone would not be able to save it.
Turkish ground forces and tanks have been stationed along the border since the fighting began but have not intervened. Turkey has long distrusted the People's Protection Units, known as the YPG, viewing them as an extension of the Kurdish PKK, which waged a long and bloody insurgency against Ankara.
Turkey has said it does not want the town to fall. It has encouraged the US to set up a no-fly zone and a humanitarian corridor, as well as ramp up assistance to Syrian rebels battling to overthrow
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Lord of the Baath...
. The rebels also distrust the YPG, which they allege has conspired with Assad, allegations the Kurdish fighters deny.
On Wednesday, a Kurdish activist said he was detained by Turkish authorities along with 157 residents from Kobani and other activists shortly after they crossed into Turkey three days ago. Mustafa Bali said the detainees include 33 women and nine children.
Bali said the activists were to escort Kurdish civilians to safety in Turkey and then cross back.
"They allowed us to cross and once we were in Turkey they detained us," Bali said, speaking to The News Agency that Dare Not be Named over the phone from a school in the Turkish border village of Ali Kor.