(MENAFN- The Peninsula) United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned yesterday that a solely military response to the threat of Islamic State (IS) in Syria could fuel the radicalisation of more Sunni armed groups and spark more violence. "Our long-term strategic objective in Syria remains a political solution," Ban told the UN Security Council of efforts to end Syria's three-and-a-half year civil war.
"A purely military response to the vicious new threat posed by IS could ultimately contribute to the radicalisation of other Sunni armed groups and spark a cycle of renewed violence," he said.
Islamic State has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria and is being targeted by US-led air strikes in both countries. The Sunni militant group is battling Kurdish forces for control of the Syrian town of Kobane at the Turkish border. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura, appointed by Ban to mediate a political solution in Syria to end the war, has warned thousands of people could be massacred if Kobane falls to Islamic State.
"Kobane is just one of many places across Syria where civilians are under imminent threat," Ban told the council meeting on the Middle East.
"In addition to the barbarity of IS, the Syrian government continues to brutally and indiscriminately attack populated areas including with barrel bombs," he said.
Ban urged the Security Council to fully support the efforts of de Mistura to "reduce the suffering of the Syrian people and contribute to a political solution." Some 3.2 million Syrians have fled the violence that has killed nearly 200,000 people since 2011, according to the United Nations.
A US military airdrop of weapons meant for Kurdish fighters fell into the hands of their foes near the Syrian battleground town of Kobane, a monitor said yesterday. The US Air Force parachuted crates of weapons, ammunition and medical supplies on Sunday night to resupply Kurds defending the Syrian town of Kobane from the IS militants.
"One load was taken by IS and there are contradictory reports about a second" which was also reported to have gone astray, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Some sources said two consignments had landed in the hands of IS, but others said that warplanes from a US-led coalition destroyed one of them once the error was detected. But US Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said Monday that only one of 27 bundles had gone astray and that American warplanes bombed it to prevent it being snatched by IS. In a video posted on the Internet, titled "Arms and ammunition dropped by US planes in an IS-held area of Kobane", a masked gunman shows off what appears to be one such bundle attached to a parachute.
"This is the American aid thrown to the infidels," he says, opening wooden boxes filled with rockets and grenades, as aircraft could be heard circling overhead.
"Praise be to God, this is booty for the mujahedeen (Islamic warriors)."
Meanwhile, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed Western powers on Tuesday for the rise of IS insurgents in Iraq and Syria and said they had no business tampering with the region's geopolitics.
Iran and the United States have been arch-foes for decades but now share a strategic interest in reversing the territorial gains of IS that threaten to remake the Middle East map.
But cooperation has been blocked in part by the fact Tehran and Washington back opposing sides in Syria's civil war, where IS is among rebel forces fighting President Bashar Al Assad. While Washington opposes Assad, it sees IS as a bigger threat and is staging air strikes to try to neutralise the Al Qaeda offshoot with the support of Western and Gulf Arab allies.
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