A Syrian Kurdish woman cries as she holds her baby in the southeastern town of Suruc after crossing the border between Syria and Turkey yesterday. Tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds have flooded into Turkey fleeing an onslaught by the Islamic State group.
Kurdish fighters backed by US-led air strikes were locked in fierce fighting yesterday to prevent a key Syrian border town from falling into the hands of Islamic State militants.
It came as 41 children were reported dead in twin bombings that hit a school in the government-controlled central city of Homs, which has been devastated by the three-year civil war.
Anti-militant air strikes and heavy clashes in the besieged town of Ain al-Arab on the Turkish border killed at least 18 people—nine militants and nine Kurdish fighters, monitors said.
Ambulances ferried wounded fighters for treatment in Turkey amid mortar fire, with some rounds hitting very close to the border.
The twin blasts in Homs farther south hit a neighbourhood inhabited mainly by the Alawite community of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which has been frequently targeted by rebels and Islamist militants.
One attacker carried out both of the bombings, planting a bomb at one location before blowing himself up at another spot, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The dead children were among at least 48 people killed.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
About 191,000 people have been killed since an uprising against Assad erupted in 2011, escalating into a several-sided war involving pro-government forces, hardline militants and more moderate rebels.
Near the Turkish border, Kurdish forces have been on the defensive for more than two weeks in the face of a militant assault that sent tens of thousands of refugees streaming across the frontier.
With IS fighters less than 3km from the town, the US-led coalition carried out three air strikes in the area on Tuesday and yesterday, the Pentagon said.
The raids destroyed an IS armed vehicle, an artillery piece and a tank, US Central Command said, bringing to seven the number of raids since Saturday around the town, known by the Kurds as Kobane.
At least eight Islamist fighters were killed when a tank was hit, according to the Observatory, a Britain-based monitoring group.
“Kurdish fighters on the front lines saw the bodies literally being thrown into the air” by the blast, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
One refugee from the fighting said the light weapons available to the town’s defenders meant that they could only engage the militants at close quarters.
Ain al-Arab would be a major prize for IS, giving it unbroken control of a long stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border.
The US-led coalition of Western and Arab allies has been flying missions in Syria since last week against IS, an extremist group that has seized control of large parts of the country and neighbouring Iraq.
Backed by coalition raids, Kurdish forces on Tuesday attacked the town of Rabia on the Syrian border, north of militant-controlled second city Mosul, and south of oil hub Kirkuk, commanders said.
An officer said up to 12 militants had holed up in a clinic and were surrounded.
Farther south, Sunni Arab tribesmen repelled a renewed militant attack in the town of Dhuluiyah in fighting that killed 14 people, police and medics said.
And a coalition warplane killed nine militants in a strike on an IS base near Hawijah, a senior Iraqi intelligence officer said.
In Baghdad, a suicide car bombing ripped through a busy commercial street, killing at least 14 people, police and medical sources said.
The Pentagon has warned there would be no quick and easy end to the fighting, with spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby saying: “No one should be lulled into a false sense of security by accurate air strikes.”
And Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said dropping “tons of bombs” on IS would provide only temporary respite.
Nato member Turkey, after months of caution, has decided to harden its policy, and parliament is due to debate today a government request to authorise military action against IS in Iraq and Syria.
Australia announced that its jets were joining the air campaign in Iraq in a support capacity.
IS beheads seven men,three women: monitor
Islamic State beheaded seven men and three women in a northern Kurdish area of Syria, a human rights monitoring group said yesterday.
The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul Rahman, said five anti-Islamic State Kurdish fighters, including three women, and four Syrian Arab rebels were detained and beheaded on Tuesday 14km west of Kobani, a Kurdish town besieged by Islamic State near the Turkish border.
He said a Kurdish male civilian was also beheaded.
France boosting military response to Islamic State
France is sending more fighter jets and a warship to strike Islamic State militants in Iraq and will discuss with the United States long-term coalition strategy to tackle the insurgency, including in Syria, officials said yesterday.
France was the first country to join the US-led coalition in air strikes on IS insurgents in Iraq, who have also taken control of large parts of neighbouring Syria during the course of the three-year-old civil war there.
However, France has raised concerns that air action in Syria could leave a void that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces may fill and has called for a concerted effort to reinforce and train moderate anti-Assad rebels on the ground.
Ahead of a visit to Washington by Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian today to meet his American counterpart, his ministry said three Rafale fighter jets and an anti-aircraft warship would be sent to the Gulf to support Iraqi government forces against Islamic State.
“There will be a strengthening of our capacity to increase the rhythm of missions in the coming days,” a senior French defence ministry source said.
France currently has six fighter jets, an Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft and a refuelling plane at its base in the United Arab Emirates as part of its “Chammal” Iraq mission.
It has carried out just two air strikes in Iraq since launching operations in mid-September. France has also delivered 140 tonnes of military equipment to regional Kurdish peshmerga forces confronting Islamic State in the north of Iraq, as well as provided training for them.
“We (the coalition) are still in the initial phase,” the defence ministry source said. “The objective through these air strikes ... is to break (Islamic State’s) momentum and try to stop them taking the offensive and to start suffering defeats.”
The source, who estimated the number of Islamic State fighters at between 25,000-35,000, said Le Drian’s visit to Washington would focus on how to get Iraqi, Kurdish and Syrian opposition forces to launch an offensive on the ground.
“The next phase is for the local forces to retake territory. That will take several months to develop,” the source said.
“Among allies, and that’s partly why we are going to Washington, we have to agree how we are going to reach this objective and what means we are going to put in place to train, and equip those who are fighting Daesh (Islamic State).”
France, which has provided limited weapons to Syrian rebels, has repeatedly said it will strengthen the moderate opposition to fight Assad and the Islamic State, whose main power base is in rebel-controlled eastern and northern Syria.
It estimates that there are about 80,000 fighters opposed to Assad and the Islamic State divided into 1,500 fighting groups.
Of those, some 15,000 fighters belong to the Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA), while the remainder are split between the Syrian Revolutionary Front and the Islamic Front.
“The idea is to give the opposition the capacity to resist and take the initiative against the two enemies it is facing,” the source said, adding that given the FSA’s weakness and internal rivalries, the coalition needed to co-ordinate efforts.
He declined to say which groups France backed or how much it had given them but, highlighting the fragmented nature of Syrian groups, he said arming rebels was done on a case-by-case basis.
“The decision to support a group is done on a (group by group) basis after a validation process.”
