MESOP : AGAINST ALL CONTRARY PYD/PKK ALLEGATIONS – US-Led Strikes Hit Jihadists Attacking Syria Kurd Town, Says NGO

2014-09-27 18:00 GMT – (AFP) — The US-led coalition hit Islamic State group targets around a Syrian town on the Turkish border today where tens of thousands have fled a jihadist assault, a monitoring group said.The reported strikes around the mainly Kurdish town of Ain al-Arab came as the US-led coalition widened its air war against IS targets in Syria as part of “near continuous” raids against the jihadists. It was the second time that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had reported US-led air strikes around the town, known as Kobane in Kurdish, since the launch of the IS advance which has sent 160,000 streaming over the border into Turkey. Both the Observatory and Syrian state media had also reported coalition air strikes around the town on Tuesday night. Senior Syrian Kurdish official Newaf Khalil confirmed the latest strikes, and told AFP they destroyed several IS tanks.

“We definitely welcome… the international coalition in the fight against (IS),” Khalil told AFP via the Internet, adding that the latest strike hit the IS-held town of Ali Shar, east of Ain al-Arab.

The strikes came a day after hundreds of Kurdish fighters crossed from Turkey to reinforce Ain al-Arab’s Kurdish militia defenders, breaking through the border fence with Turkish security forces apparently turning a blind eye.

The US-led coalition hit IS targets in Syria’s central province of Homs for the first time today as well as in the town of Minbej, near the western limit of IS control, the Observatory said. Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said the targets hit in Homs province were far away from the front line with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, who control Homs city, Syria’s third largest. “The US-Arab coalition has for the first time struck IS bases in the eastern desert of Homs province,” Abdel Rahman said, adding that the positions were in the area of Al-Hammad, east of ancient city Palmyra.

Washington has been keen not to let Assad’s forces exploit the air campaign against IS to take the upper hand in the more than three-year-old civil war. Further east, the coalition pounded the city of Raqa, which the jihadists have made their headquarters, said the Observatory, which relies on a broad network of activists and doctors for its reports. The strikes also hit IS targets around the town of Tabqa, which houses an air base whose capture by the jihadists last month sealed their occupation of the whole of Raqa province, the Britain-based group added. The United States and its Arab allies launched air strikes against IS and other jihadist positions in northern and eastern Syria on Tuesday.