...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....
stronghold in Syria Friday in a move that could impede jihadist movements near the border with Iraq, where they also control large swathes of territory.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shouting match, a new, even louder, voice was to be heard...
the United States and Turkey are to begin training and equipping moderate Syrian rebels for the fight against
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
and IS.
The main Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) said its fighters had liberated Tal Hamis and surrounding communities at the request of residents "who wanted to get rid of these turbans and mercenaries."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "the jihadists retreated without much resistance after Kurdish forces, backed by Arab fighters, returned to Tal Hamis."
The Kurds now occupy a strip of land linking the Hasakeh provincial town, which has been under IS control for more than a year, with the Iraqi border.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said it was "one of the most important strongholds" of the group in the region.
The Kurdish advance comes after days of fighting in which YPG forces have taken some 103 villages and hamlets.
Since the festivities began last Saturday, at least 175 IS fighters have been killed by the Kurds and in air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition.
Additionally, 30 fighters from the YPG and Arab units fighting alongside them have been killed. Among the dead was an Australian, the first Westerner to die in a Kurdish unit in Syria.
The Pentagon said the coalition had carried out several air strikes in Hasakeh province on Thursday, including three near Tal Hamis.
The fighting came as Kurdish forces continued to battle IS after an offensive elsewhere in the province in which the jihadists kidnapped at least 220 Assyrian Christians.
- Mass exodus -
The offensive, during which IS also seized 10 villages, has prompted a mass exodus of an estimated 5,000 people to the cities of Qamishli and Hasakeh.
Jean Tolo, an official with the Assyrian Organization for Relief and Development in Qamishli, said the pace of arrivals had slowed by Friday.
"We are offering the displaced food and everything they need," he told Agence La Belle France-Presse by telephone.
"There are doctors working for free ready to deal with any emergency," he added.
Assyrians number about 30,000 among Syria's 1.2 million Christians and mostly live along the Khabur River in Hasakeh.
More than 210,00 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shouting match, a new, even louder, voice was to be heard...
Britannia and La Belle France said Assad cannot credibly be part of any future government combating the IS threat.
"We need a partner in Syria to work with against the snuffies and this means a political settlement agreed between the Syrian parties leading to a unity government in Syria," British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and his French counterpart Laurent Fabius write in a joint editorial in Le Monde and Al-Hayat newspapers.
"It is clear to us that Assad could not credibly be part of any such administration.