...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.
The group of 10 fighters were to coordinate with local Kurdish militia who have been holding off an assault by IS jihadists for six weeks, a monitoring group said.
A peshmerga convoy reached the town of Suruc on the Turkish side of the border Thursday, after traveling through southeastern Turkey along roads clogged with flag-waving Kurds, an AFP photographer said.
There it linked up there with a second group of peshmerga who had flown in Wednesday, but it was unclear when the main force would cross into Kobane.
Officials have said there are about 150 peshmerga fighters in total, armed with machineguns, heavy artillery and rocket launchers.
The IS jihadists were pounding northern areas of Kobane along the border with mortars and heavy artillery Thursday, a monitoring group said, in an apparent bid to prevent the peshmerga from crossing.
| But not to stop the FSA? How precise of them. |
"The bombardment of the border area will likely delay the entry of the peshmerga" into Kobane, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman, whose group relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria.
Kobane has become an important symbol of the battle against IS, an myrmidon Sunni Moslem group that has seized swathes of Syria and Iraq, committing atrocities and declaring an Islamic "caliphate".
A U.S.-led coalition carrying out air raids against IS has intensified attacks near Kobane in recent days, and the Pentagon said its fighter jets and bombers made 10 strikes in the area on Wednesday and Thursday.
The coalition carried out two other strikes elsewhere in Syria and two more in Iraq, it said.
Washington has also dropped weapons to Kobane's defenders, who had received little in the way of reinforcements until now.
Under pressure from the United States, Turkey agreed last week to allow the peshmerga to cross its territory to Kobane.
Turkey also allowed dozens of rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army
... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund...
(FSA) to cross into Kobane Wednesday, but they were lightly armed and unlikely to make a crucial difference in the battle.
Ankara has been wary of giving support to the YPG Kurdish militia, which has close links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has fought a three-decade insurgency in southeast Turkey.
The peshmerga reinforcements were waiting in a storage facility in Suruc, 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border, which was heavily guarded by Turkish security forces who prevented media approaching.
The Observatory said the small group of peshmerga that had entered Kobane were there to "coordinate the arrival of their comrades".
Syrian
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
's regime denounced Ankara, which has long supported the war against it, for allowing them across the border.
"Once again, Turkey has shown its conspiratorial role... by allowing foreign forces and terrorist groups to enter Syria," said a foreign ministry statement reported by state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
"This constitutes a flagrant violation of Syrian illusory sovereignty."
In Iraq, hundreds of soldiers and pro-government fighters were gathering for an assault on the strategic jihadist-held northern town of Baiji, officers said.
"Iraqi forces are massing at the town of Baiji, preparing to enter the town and regain control of it," said Lieutenant General Abdulwahab al-Saadi, who heads the provincial military command.
Baiji lies on the main highway to Iraq's IS-controlled second city djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
and the assault could open the way to breaking a months-old jihadist siege of government forces defending Iraq's largest oil refinery, which is located near the town.
IS arose in the chaos of Syria's civil war, an uprising against Assad that has killed more than 180,000 people and forced millions from their homes in the past three-and-a-half years.
The regime has been accused of carrying out widespread abuses in its fight against a diverse group of rebels who include IS, other jihadists and secular rebels.
Washington expressed horror Wednesday at reports Syrian government forces had dropped barrel bombs on a camp for displaced persons in the northwestern province of Idlib.
"We are horrified by the reports that the Assad regime barrel bombed the Abedin displaced persons camp in Idlib and the images we saw of the carnage against innocent civilians," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki
...a valley girl who woke up one morning and found she was spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of State...
said. "The attack on the Abedin camp was nothing short of barbaric."
The Observatory said the attack Wednesday killed at least 10 people and maimed dozens more in the camp.
