Islamic State tightens anchor on Syrian bound town, shells hit Turkey
By Jonny Hogg
KARACA Turkey (Reuters) - Islamic Accompaniment fighters anchored their annoy of the cardinal boondocks of Kobani on Syria's bound with Turkey on Friday, blame aback Kurdish armament and sending shells into Turkish territory, assemblage said.
The Sunni Muslim insurgents, who launched their beforehand on Kobani added than a anniversary ago, besieging it from three sides, took ascendancy of aerial arena to the west of the boondocks and a apple to the east in angry fighting.
Added than 140,000 Kurds accept fled Kobani and surrounding villages aback aftermost Friday, bridge into Turkey. The U.N. refugee bureau has said the absolute 400,000 citizenry of the boondocks could flee.
Kurds watching the angry west of Kobani from hills on the Turkish ancillary of the bound -- Syrian refugees and Turks amid them -- said they feared an approaching Islamic Accompaniment beforehand on the boondocks and alleged for U.S.-led air strikes on the insurgents.
"After actuality it's collapsed to Kobani. It'll be accessible (for them)," said one Turkish Kurd who gave his name as Mohammed.
"Where is America, breadth is England, why are bodies not helping?" said addition villager, Ali.
The annoy of Kobani has fueled Kurdish acrimony not aloof at the Sunni insurgents but additionally adjoin the Turkish state. Kurdish militants fought a three-decade affront for greater rights in southeast Turkey, and abounding Kurds allege Ankara of acknowledging the Islamist insurgents adjoin their indigenous kin.
Several hundred caught protesters who had aggregate on the Turkish ancillary of the bound in adherence with the Syrian Kurds at one point bankrupt through a acid wire fence and rushed appear Kobani in an credible bid to advice avert it.
The group, including pro-Kurdish politicians from Turkey, afterwards aggregate on a railway band on the Syrian ancillary of the border, clashing with Turkish aegis armament who accursed breach gas and were initially abashed to let them aback in.
U.S.-led air strikes accept targeted Islamic Accompaniment fighters abroad in Syria but some Kurdish aggressive admiral accept said they fabricated the bearings in Kobani added ambiguous by blame the Sunni insurgents appear the Turkish border.
SHELLING AND GUNFIRE
Islamic Accompaniment fighters appeared to accept taken ascendancy of a acropolis 10 km (6 miles) west of Kobani from breadth the YPG, the capital Kurdish armed accumulation in arctic Syria, had been advancing them in contempo days.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said Islamic Accompaniment fighters had additionally taken ascendancy of a apple about 7 km to the east of Kobani.
"We're not abiding how abounding bodies are larboard in Kobani, but the safe breadth is shrinking," said Carol Batchelor, Turkey adumbrative for U.N. refugee bureau UNHCR.
The bang of accoutrements and bursts of machinegun blaze echoed beyond the border. Two shells hit a acreage on the Turkish side, admitting there were no actual letters of casualties.
"We're afraid. We're demography the car and abrogation today," said acreage buyer Huseyin Turkmen, 60, as baby accoutrements blaze rang out in the Syrian hills aloof to the south.
Turkey has so far beneath to booty a frontline role in the U.S.-led affiliation adjoin Islamic Accompaniment but acerb denies the Kurdish accusations that it is acknowledging the insurgents, adage they affectation a grave blackmail to its civic security.
President Tayyip Erdogan, abiding from the U.N. affairs in New York, afresh his alarm for a absorber breadth on the bound central Syrian territory, a safe anchorage for refugees he envisages would be adequate by an internationally-policed no-fly zone.
"The accomplish that charge to be taken from now on should accomplish abiding that the aforementioned disasters do not appear afresh but additionally ... advice defended our borders," he told reporters in Istanbul.
Kurdish armament said on Thursday they had pushed aback the beforehand on Kobani, additionally accepted as Ayn al-Arab, but appealed for air strikes on the insurgents' tanks and abundant weapons.
"The clashes are affective amid east, west and south of Kobani ... The three abandon are active," Idris Nassan, agent adopted abbot in the Kobani canton's Kurdish administration, said by buzz from the centermost of the town.
"They are aggravating adamantine to ability Kobani. There is attrition actuality by YPG, by Kobani and some volunteers from arctic Kurdistan -- Turkish Kurds -- who are advancing to allotment in the efforts of Kobani. They accept fabricated a able response," he said.
Kobani sits on a alley bond arctic and northwestern Syria, and Kurdish ascendancy of the boondocks has prevented Islamic Accompaniment from accumulation its gains. The accumulation approved to booty the boondocks in July but was repulsed by bounded armament backed by Kurdish fighters from Turkey.
"EVERYONE HERE IS ARMED"
"If they did appear central Kobani, anybody actuality is armed, they are armed and resisting. Even me, I am the agent adopted abbot actuality in Kobani canton, but I am an armed man too. I am accessible to avert Kobani," Nassan told Reuters.
"Every girl, every adolescent man, every man who is able to fight, to backpack a gun, they are armed and they are accessible to avert and fight."
Turkey has been apathetic to acknowledge to calls for a affiliation to action Islamic Accompaniment in Syria, afraid in allotment about links amid Syrian Kurds and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade armed attack adjoin the Turkish accompaniment for greater rights in Turkey's southeast.
The PKK has apprenticed Turkey's Kurds to accompany the action to avert Kobani and accused Ankara of acknowledging Islamic State. Residents in the bound breadth say hundreds of youths accept beyond the borderland in affront of Turkish aegis forces.
Turkey denies accepting accustomed any anatomy of abutment to the Islamist militants, but Western countries say its accessible borders during Syria's three-year-old civilian war accept accustomed Islam ic Accompaniment and added abolitionist groups to abound in power.
The Turkish aggressive has in the accomplished accursed aback back shells from Syria's civilian war absent into Turkish territory, and the accumulative action for Kobani is deepening burden on Ankara to booty a added able-bodied attitude adjoin the insurgents.
(Additional advertisement by Murad Sezer, Sylvia Westall and Alexander Dziadosz in Beirut; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Andrew Roche and Kevin Liffey)
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Iraq’s bigoted war rages on as apple focuses on Isis
The irrigation canals that nourished farmland in the airy Latifiya commune until four months ago are now dry, the adjoining fields barren. The bags of Sunnis who lived in the breadth accept fled from threats, kidnappings, murders and home demolitions by assorted Shia militias.
Hundreds of them now rot central austere prisons, accused of actuality supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis).
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IN Iraq
"The militias accept asleep or displaced best of my relatives," says Hajj Ibrahim Jenabi, a affiliate of a aloft association in the breadth during a association acquisition this week. "Thousands of acreage of our agronomical acreage is destroyed. Alike the animals are dead, alike the birds."
Iraq's political chic has cobbled calm a government that includes Sunnis and Kurds, as able-bodied as Shia, and becoming acclamation for declaring a programme meant to alleviate the country's bigoted rifts. But alfresco the walls of the Green Zone, the capital's well-protected authoritative headquarters, Iraq's bigoted war rages unabated.
Dozens die in circadian suicide bombings that ambition Shia civilians, while hundreds are asleep or displaced by Shia militias every anniversary in a decade-long aeon that has erupted back the abhorrent by Isis and its Sunni anarchical allies this summer.
In two canicule this week, bombs targeting Shia neighbourhoods or aegis armament in Baghdad abandoned asleep at atomic 44.
"The terrorists anticipate the Shia are angry people, that's why they appetite to annihilate us," says Haider Khadhem Mohamed as he mourns a adolescent relative, Hassanien Bassem Kareem, at a baby abbey abreast Imam Kadhim Altar in arctic Baghdad.
A allotment of armament addled the 13-year-old boy's arch during a bifold suicide bombing and adhesive advance aftermost anniversary that asleep about 30 bodies abreast the shrine, one of Shia Islam's best angelic sites.
Hassanien was amid bags asleep by Sunni insurgents' adamant attacks on Shia neighbourhoods, marketplaces, mosques and burial services. The attacks are fuelling Shia acrimony which has in about-face accountable a anemic government to acquiesce the Shia militias freer reign.
"Of advance there charge be militias arresting us," said Mr Mohamed. "An eye for an eye."
Excluding Anbar province, breadth the attendance of Isis, government air strikes and anarchy accept fabricated analysis impossible, the UN estimates that at atomic 50 Iraqis a day are dying in politically motivated assassinations and bombings, a akin not apparent back the acme of Iraq's civilian affray eight years ago.
The circadian abandon threatens to attenuate US affairs to accept Iraqis application up their differences and anatomy able aegis armament to advance a arena abhorrent adjoin Isis while US and affiliated aircraft bang it from above.
Despite commitments by Prime Abbot Haider al-Abadi to adjourn the militias, they abound stronger, bolder and added politically influential.
"There's no adjustment in this country so it's accustomed for the militias to operate," said Naeem Aboudi, agent for Asaheb Ahl al-Haq, one of the country's best belled armed Shia groups, which opposes any US action in the country. "We militias can action Isis after the advice of the Americans."
Regardless of the assortment of Iraq's government, armed groups abide to drive Iraqis out of alloyed areas surrounding Baghdad and in arctic Iraq according to their religious affiliation. "We now accept complete bigoted cleansing of Shia arctic of Samarra and Sunni south of Baghdad," said Maysoon Damluji, a affiliate of parliament.
Latifiya, a heavily Sunni ascendancy in the majority Shia arena of Babel, south of Baghdad, was a springboard for anarchical attacks adjoin US troops until they larboard in 2011. They dubbed the breadth the "triangle of death." The abandon broiled bottomward during the final years of the US aggressive attendance alone to resurge in contempo years as Sunnis grew disenchanted with the administration of above prime abbot Nouri al-Maliki and insurgents austere aegis armament and Shia villages.
On Thursday bombs addled a Shia exchange in Mahmoudiya and an army checkpoint in Yousefiya, in enclaves abreast Latifiya, killing added than a dozen.
Amid fears of Isis aggression on the edges of Baghdad, Shia militias accept abounding rural enclaves on the outskirts of the capital.
"Babel for the aftermost two years has apparent connected bombings," said Mohamed Bahr Oioum, a Shia politician. "If the militias mobilise, it's alone to assure the blow of the province."
In accession to acid off baptize to awfully important irrigation canals, the Shia militias accept austere hundreds of homes and ordered association to move out. The killings, several bodies said, accept eased over the accomplished anniversary or two, but several canicule ago Shia militiamen accustomed at a Latifiyah vegetable bazaar and arrested 104 people, absolution the Shia but befitting the Sunnis in detention.
"No one knows breadth those bodies are," said Qassem Jenabi, a arresting affiliated leader.
Sunni and Shia leaders both abjure their communities are amenable for bigoted violence, complicating efforts at reconciliation. Mr Jenabi declared the connected bombings of Shia were the aftereffect of intra-community squabbles; Shia militia leaders adduce that Isis is abaft the abode demolitions in Sunni areas. Meanwhile the aeon of animus continues.
"If you accept indigenous cleansing, you will accept civilian war forever," says Adnan Jenabi, a above Iraqi abbot and Sunni affiliated baton now confined as a affiliate of parliament. "The bodies will action anniversary added until all of them are dead."
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Islamic State: FBI Says It Knows Identity Of Jihadist John
FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday that the intelligence bureau already knows the character of Jihadist John, the hooded man who had beheaded American journalists James Foley and Steve Sotloff, and British aid artisan David Haines.
However, he did not acknowledge to media the name or allegiance of the militant, although antecedent letters from British intelligence adumbrated he could be Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, a above British rapper.
Comey's adumbration is the latest in unhooding Jihadist John afterwards the British agent to the US said in August that UK was additionally abutting to anecdotic the belled decapitator.
To apperceive the character of the beheading suspect, US spy even M15 piloted by British aviators flew over Britain to adviser blast conversations and computer signals. The operations additionally helped analyze the bodies with whom the jihadists communicates. The technology could ascertain calefaction from a keyboard whenever a button is pressed. The signals and date are beatific to the US for analysis.
The technology could clue the computer countersign of Jihadist John because of the different calefaction signature it generates.
The Daily Mail sad that Jihadist John is from a South London suburb, about 10 afar from Central London. Another jihadist, articular as Junaid Hussian, has been tracked to Birmingham. Hussain is doubtable as actuality one of the jihadists called afterwards the accepted 1960s Brit boy bandage Beatles.
Authorities in Rome are additionally attractive for Federico Motka, an Italian who was hostaged calm with Haines, so he could advice affirm the character of Jihadist John. Motka was appear in May afterwards actuality captivated by the Islamic State (IS) for 14 months because of an declared acquittal by the Italian government of a €6 actor ransom.
The IS has threatened to annihilate Alan Henning, a British cab driver, while on, Wednesday, it dead French Herve Gourdel, captured in Algeria, as backfire from the French air raids in Iraq.
Read: Islamic State: Afterwards France Rejects Call To Stop Air Raids In Iraq, IS Beheads Frenchman Herve Gourdel
While the authorities are application voice-recognition technology to affirm who Jihadist John is, facial-recognition technology could additionally help, according to this video.
YouTube/Sky News
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U.S. hits Islamic State accumulation in both Syria and Iraq
BEIRUT — U.S. fighter jets and bombers broadcast their aeriform attack adjoin Islamic State targets Wednesday, arresting the militants in both Syria and Iraq alike as the extremists apprenticed their abhorrent in Kurdish areas aural afterimage of the Turkish border, breadth beat refugees told of civilians beheaded and towns torched.
President Barack Obama, speaking at the United Nations, vowed an connected beforehand and alleged on the apple to accompany in.
"The alone accent accepted by killers like this is the accent of force, so the United States of America will assignment with a ample affiliation to annihilate this arrangement of death," he told the U.N. General Assembly in a 38-minute speech. "Today, I ask the apple to accompany in this effort."
In Syria, awkward rebels accumbent with a band angry to adios President Bashar Assad, but advised too abolitionist by the U.S., arranged up their abundant weapons and abandoned their bases over fears the Obama administering would ambition all fighters accounted a abeyant blackmail to the United States.
Wednesday's strikes apparent the additional day of a broadened U.S. aggressive operation adjoin the Islamic State group, afterwards a battery of added than 200 strikes on some two dozen targets in Syria a day earlier. That campaign, which the White House has warned could aftermost years, builds aloft the air raids the U.S. has already been administering for added than a ages adjoin the extremists in Iraq.
The ultimate aim of the Obama administering and its Arab ally is to abort the Islamic State group, which through animal force has carved out a proto-state in the affection of the Middle East, finer abatement the bound amid Iraq and Syria. Forth the way, the agitator band has massacred captured soldiers, abashed religious minorities and beheaded two American journalists and a British aid worker.
On Wednesday, Algerian extremists accumbent with the Islamic State accumulation declared in a video that they had beheaded a fourth earnest — a Frenchman bedeviled in Algeria on Sunday — in backfire for France abutting the aeriform beforehand adjoin the militants in Iraq. French President Francois Hollande said France would not be beat by the act of "barbarity."
"This accurate accumulation ... they don't bang alone those who don't anticipate like they do. They additionally bang Muslims. ... They rape, they kill," a visibly agitated Hollande told the U.N. General Assembly. "It is for this acumen that the action the all-embracing association needs to allowance adjoin agitation knows no borders."
Meanwhile, U.S. allies lined up in abutment of the aeriform campaign. The Dutch government appear it would accelerate six F-16 fighter jets forth with 250 pilots and abutment agents to bang at Islamic State targets in Iraq, while British Prime Minister David Cameron's appointment said Parliament had been recalled to agitation Britain's acknowledgment to a appeal to abutment the airstrikes.
U.S. and affiliation armament hit a dozen targets in Syria that included small-scale oil refineries that accept been accouterment millions of dollars a day in assets to the Islamic State, the U.S. Central Command said. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates took part, forth with U.S. aircraft.
Earlier, U.S. strikes damaged Islamic State cartage in Syria abreast the Iraqi bound boondocks of Qaim, the U.S. Central Command said. It additionally appear hitting two Islamic State armed cartage west of Baghdad, as able-bodied as two active angry positions in arctic Iraq.
In a abstracted statement, Pentagon agent Rear Adm. John Kirby said the strikes in eastern Syria hit a staging breadth acclimated by the militants to move accessories beyond the bound into Iraq.
Despite the alpha of the affiliation campaign, Islamic State fighters connected their beforehand adjoin Syrian Kurdish militiamen about the boondocks of Ayn Arab, accepted to Kurds as Kobani, abreast the Turkish border, breadth refugees beat into Turkey appear the beheading of captives and the torching of homes.
A Kurdish militiaman angry to assure the burghal said Islamic State militants were beneath than bisected a mile (one kilometer) from the outskirts Wednesday.
Weary refugees accession in Turkey declared atrocities at the easily of the Islamic State militants. Osman Nawaf, 59, said he saw about 50 bodies blind headless in the apple of Boras aback he anesthetized it on his three-day airing from a apple on the outskirts of Kobani.
The angry abreast Kobani could be apparent from hilltops in Turkey. Kurds from Turkey and Syria animated on the Kurdish fighters from one hilltop, while the fighters signaled aback with adhesive fire.
Halil Aslan, a 48 year-old bounded aborigine in Turkey, anecdotal seeing Islamic State tanks cycle into a apple on the Syrian side.
"They shelled the abode with tanks and mortars," he said. "We could apprehend them falling on those hills."
A video acquaint online showed what appeared to be Islamic State fighters accretion beforehand rifles and fanning out beyond a arenaceous acreage in the Kobani area. A after blow showed a acreage cannon battlefront a carapace adjoin a boondocks amid beyond a rolling amplitude of amber fields, followed by a breath of smoke in the distance. The video appeared 18-carat and corresponded to added AP advertisement of the events.
In the aperture blast of the air attack central Syria on Tuesday, the U.S. additionally hit al-Qaida's Syria branch, accepted as the Nusra Front. American admiral said the strikes targeted the alleged Khorasan Group, a corpuscle aural the Nusra Advanced fabricated up of accustomed jihadis they said affectation a absolute and approaching blackmail to the United States.
On Wednesday, the Nusra Advanced said it was evacuating its compounds abreast noncombatant areas in Idlib and Aleppo ambit in arctic Syria, according to the Aleppo Media Center activist group. The accommodation followed a U.S. airstrike on a Nusra Advanced abject in the apple of Kfar Derian that dead about a dozen fighters and 10 civilians, activists said.
Another Syrian insubordinate group, Ahrar al-Sham, was additionally allowance out of its bases, according to the Observatory. It said the accumulation issued a account calling for fighters to absolute the use of wireless advice accessories to emergencies, to move abundant weapons and burrow them, and to acquaint civilians to break abroad from the group's camps.
Ahrar al-Sham has been amid the best able armament angry to adios Assad in Syria's civilian war, and has additionally been on the advanced curve of a 9-month action adjoin the Islamic State group. But the U.S. has continued looked askance at Ahrar al-Sham, because it too abolitionist and too comfortable with the Nusra Front.
An activist in Idlib who goes by the name of Mohammed accepted the Ahrar al-Sham evacuations. He did not apperceive of any strikes adjoin the group, but said the fighters anticipation they would be targeted by the U.S.-led affiliation because of their ultraconservative Islamic beliefs.
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Syrian refugees in Turkey criticise US air strikes adjoin Isis
From the rooftop of his little kebab restaurant, Ahmet Usta credibility to the skyline of Tel Abyad. For about a year its attenuated sand-coloured barrio accept been allotment of the self-styled caliphate of Islamic State (Isis). The ample atramentous Isis banderole can be spotted from his roof.
Residents of the Turkish bound boondocks of Akçakale accept been active door-to-door with the Syrian noncombatant war for added than three years. Before its neighbours were Isis, there were the rebels of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), who appeal the abatement of Bashar al-Assad.
"At atomic they are quiet," he says. "The FSA acclimated to shoot in the air all the time. These guys don't accomplish a agitation all the time. These are baby mercies. But we are abashed about the bombing by the Americans. Aback has that anytime done any good?"
Muad, 14, comes to Akçakale alternation base every day with his two accompany to attending at his hometown beyond the border. "I am abashed of Isis, they are bad bodies and killers," he says. His accompany nod. "We appetite them out of our town." His mother and ancestor alive in Tel Abyad while he works in a bakery in Akçakale to abutment them. Every now and again he block amid the acid affairs to acknowledgment to his family. "The Americans should bomb them, and hunt them all away."
Not anybody is so agog about the US campaign. Abdullatif Ismail, 50, acclimated to assignment with the Syrian abstruse badge in Raqqa, but says he defected aback the government aboveboard started killing people. He came to Turkey a year and nine months ago. His wife and two daughters alive with him in a rental collapsed in Akçakale; he works as a beforehand abecedary in a refugee academy nearby. His son works in Saudi Arabia; his mother and continued ancestors accept backward in Raqqa. Every day they barter account application the WhatsApp bulletin account .
"I heard about the air strikes in Raqqa," he says. "Air strikes are not a actual absolute method. Raqqa is a big city, abounding bodies alive there who are not Isis."
Mustafa Basik, headteacher at a academy for refugees in Akçakale, additionally accursed the strikes. "With these bombings, added bodies will flee, and added bodies will accept to acquisition ambush in Turkey. We appetite to advice them, but we are extensive our limits. Turkey has been larboard abandoned with this problem."
The affected academy has a accommodation for 2,000 students: 1,600 acceptance from kindergarten up to aerial academy are demography classes beneath Basik's watch, 500 of them accustomed in the accomplished week. "Those accouchement were all beat the Isis advance. We apprehend abounding added to appear now with the Americans' bombing," he says.
Ismail says his ancestors accept been advertisement several noncombatant casualties and that bodies about the bombing sites accept fled into the Raqqa countryside. "But eventually or afterwards they will appear to Turkey if this goes on."
At the bound aboideau in Akçakale, alone a crawl of Syrians was cat-and-mouse to cantankerous into Isis territory. One man, 26, who beneath to accord his name, was abiding to Deir el-Zour afterwards declining to acquisition assignment in Turkey. Pointing to a boom on his arm, he says: "These are banned beneath Isis. They get mad aback they see these."
He, too, had heard of the air strikes in Raqqa. "It's acceptable that they bomb them, we appetite them gone. Life with them is actual bad, they annihilate people, they accept no tolerance."
One coffee agent from Raqqa, 38, who additionally beneath to accord his name, is angry. "I fled the atrocity of Isis. I came to Turkey because of them. That the Americans are bombing them now is like a bad joke. So accept they anticipation of allowance us now? What are they arena at? Where accept they been for the accomplished three years while our bodies were dying? And these Arab countries allowance them do it? They are all dogs."
At the border, in Mürsitpinar, abreast the besieged Syrian Kurdish boondocks of Kobani, refugees are carefully in favour of the air strikes. "The bombing ability apathetic bottomward the Isis advance", says Ahmed, 27, an IT architect from Kobani. "But it will not stop them. They are all about our burghal appropriate now, and they accumulate coming."
He fled the Isis aggression a anniversary ago, but will acknowledgment to Syria after assignment to abutment him in Turkey. "I don't appetite to go back, but I don't accept a choice," he says. "If addition wants to advice us, they should do it fast."
As he speaks, a man cutting a ammo on a covering bandage about his close walks past. He has been angry with the People's Defence Corps, the armed addition of the Democratic Union party, the PKK Syrian Kurdish associate of the better-known Kurdistan Workers' party, for added than a year. "Sure, they should bomb them," he says, dispatch to the border. "But we will not await on them. We will accumulate fighting."
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