(MENAFN- The Peninsula) US planes pounded Islamic State positions in Syria for a second day yesterday, but the strikes did not halt the fighters' advance in a Kurdish area where fleeing refugees told of villages burnt and captives beheaded.
US President Barack Obama, speaking at the United Nations, asked the world to join together to fight the militants and vowed to keep up military pressure against them. "The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force, so the United States of America will work with a broad coaltion to dismantle this network of death," Obama said in 40 minute speech to the UN General Assembly.
A US official said the leader of an Al Qaeda unit called Khorasan had been killed in the first day of strikes on Syria. Washington describes Khorasan as a separate group from Islamic State, made up of al Qaeda veterans planning attacks on the West from a base in Syria. "We believe he is dead," he said of Khorasan chief Mohsin Al Fadhli, an associate of Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.
Syrian Kurds said Islamic State had responded to US attacks by intensifying its assault near the Turkish border in northern Syria, where 140,000 civilians have fled in recent days in the fastest exodus of the three-year civil war.
Washington and Arab allies have killed scores of Islamic State fighters in the first 24 hours of air strikes, the first direct US foray into Syria two weeks after Obama pledged to hit the group on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border.
Even as Islamic State outposts elsewhere have been struck, the fighters have accelerated their campaign to capture Kobani, a Kurdish city on the border with Turkey. Nearly 140,000 Syrian Kurds have fled into Turkey since last week, the fastest exodus of the entire three-year civil war.
A Turkish official said any further advance by Islamic State would trigger a fresh wave of refugees. The official said the advance had been very rapid three days ago but was slowed by the US-led air strikes.
However, the intensifying advance on the northern town of Kobani was a reminder of the difficulty Washington faces in defeating Islamist fighters in Syria, where it lacks strong military allies on the ground. "Those air strikes are not important. We need soldiers on the ground," said Hamed, a refugee who fled into Turkey from the Islamic State advance.
Mazlum Bergaden, a teacher from Kobani who crossed the border with his family, said two of his brothers had been taken captive by Islamic State fighters. "The situation is very bad. After they kill people, they are burning the villages.... When they capture any village, they behead one person to make everyone else afraid," he said. "They are trying to eradicate our culture, purge our nation."
Fighting between Islamic State militants and Kurds could be seen from across the border in Turkey, where the sounds of sporadic artillery and gunfire echoed around the hills.
Yesterday, US-led forces hit at least 13 targets in and around Albu Kamal, one of the main border crossings between Iraq and Syria, after striking 22 targets there on Tuesday.
The US military confirmed it had struck inside Syria northwest of al Qaim, the Iraqi town at the Albu Kamal border crossing. It also struck inside Iraq west of Baghdad and near the Iraqi Kurdish capital Erbil yesterday.
Perched on the main Euphrates River valley highway, Albu Kamal controls the route from Islamic State's de facto capital Raqqa in Syria to the frontlines in western Iraq and down the Euphrates to the western and southern outskirts of Baghdad.
Islamic State's ability to move fighters and weapons between Syria and Iraq has provided an important tactical advantage for the group in both countries: Fighters sweeping in from Syria helped capture much of northern Iraq in June, and weapons they seized and sent back to Syria helped them in battle there.
The campaign has blurred the traditional lines of Middle East alliances, pitting a US coalition comprised of countries opposed to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad against fighters that form the most powerful opposition to Assad on the ground. The attacks have so far encountered no objection, and even signs of approval, from Assad's Syrian government.
But some of Assad's opponents fear the Syrian leader could exploit the US military campaign to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of Western countries, and that strikes against Islamic State could solidify his grip on power.
In perhaps the strongest signal yet that Damascus wants to be seen as fighting the same battle as Washington, Syria's minister for national reconciliation, Ali Haidar, said: "What has happened so far is proceeding in the right direction in terms of informing the Syrian government and by not targeting Syrian military installations and not targeting civilians." Damascus was watching the events with caution, Haidar said.
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.